Virtual Testing for Vehicle Safety Assessment in Consumer Protection Tests and Regulations

Description

Vehicle type approval based on virtual test procedures has been possible for some time for a limited number of specific regulations in the area of ??automotive safety. However, there have been very few actual applications so far. Currently the continually increasing demands of organizations in the area of ??consumer protection are leading to a noticeable acceleration in the development and acceptance of procedures for virtual testing as an alternative or supplement to physical testing. There are also corresponding efforts by legislators to directly implement virtual test procedures in new regulations for assessment of vehicle safety. This course offers an introduction to virtual testing-based vehicle safety assessment for both consumer testing and regulatory requirements. The fundamental processes are discussed that ensure traceable data flow while safeguarding confidential data protection requirements that lead to acceptance of simulation results for certification, homologation or NCAP assessment. The current status of various virtual testing initiatives, their timelines and remaining obstacles will be explained. The validation of models and simulation tools for virtual assessments will be shown. For test procedures that can already be applied physically, approved corresponding virtual test methods are already available. However, for virtual assessments methods based on HBMs (human body models) other approaches must be developed. These will also be discussed in detail.

Content

• Introduction to vehicle safety assessment based on virtual testing
  • Background, motivation, definitions of VT based testing procedures
  • Global overview, VT adoption timelines
  • Overview of EU research projects (e.g. IMVITER, OSCCAR, VIRTUAL)
  • Methods of model traceability
• Virtual Testing in consumer protection tests
  • Euro NCAP Virtual Testing: Developments and schedules (pedestrian protection CoHerent, occupant protection: Far-Side, Frontal impact, VT for evaluating active safety (crash avoidance)
  • C-NCAP and C-IASI Virtual Testing: current plans and status
  • IIHS plans to improve whiplash assessment through virtual testing
• Virtual Testing in legal requirements
  • Overview of virtual testing in legal regulations of vehicle safety
  • Example: UNECE Informal Working Group Deployable Pedestrian Protection Systems (DPPS)
  • Future plans and challenges of virtual testing in UNECE Informal Working Group Equitable Occupant Protection (EqOP)
• Human Models in Virtual Testing
  • Challenges and requirements to use Human Body Models (HBMs) for VT based assessment