The main objective of our research work is to improve the passenger protection effect. Professor Brandmeier and his team follow thereby the vision of airbag systems made for all senses - hearing, feeling, seeing, including the seventh sense - foreseeing. “Feeling” in the sense of measuring the rigid body delay is considered to be the best available technology. Crash events are supposed to take place when vehicles have a larger delay than certain tyre/road combinations. Structural vibrations can be measured with a crash impact sound sensor (CISS). Future safety systems and concepts are based on processing and analysis of imaging technology (e.g. radar and camera systems). The Car-to-Car (C2C) communication enables predictions about road events and environment conditions beyond the vehicle detection area.

Structure-Borne Sound for Optimized Passenger Protection - Crash Impact Sound Sensing

The Institute for Applied Research of Ingolstadt University (IAF) together with the airbag system supplier Continental, Chassis & Safety (Regensburg), Audi and Volkswagen developed a new accident detection system, which went into the series production of the first vehicle platform in 2008. This system can detect the vehicle deformation by using the structure-borne sound resulting from an accident. Therefore, passenger protection systems like airbag and pretensioner can be faster activated with fewer sensors than today’s systems. The technology was and is being developed in cooperation projects between IAF and Continental and it provides a huge potential for reducing injury and death risks in case of critical accidents. The project aims at further developing and implementing this particular system, for which Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences and Continental were awarded with the Bavarian Innovation Award in 2008. Furthermore, the project is promoted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.  

Active Crash Impact Sound Sensing

The present cooperation with Continental includes the development of the already proven system of crash detection – Crash Impact Sound Sensing. Structure-borne sound is to be produced by means of vehicle mechanisms. This signal is designed to be speed dependent and to use the accident partner for discriminating the relative crash speed. In this way the airbag can be triggered more precisely, which increases the vehicle safety once more.   

Side Crash Detection with Crash Impact Sound Sensing

The conditions for the side crash detection with Crash Impact Sound Sensing differ from those for the front. The point of impact is more variable, but also the structure of the vehicle side is very different. Depending on the point of impact, it is possible to distinguish between signal and intensity of the structure-borne sound. This makes the side crash so difficult to be detected. 

APS - Integration of Active and Passive Safety Technology

The research work aims to optimize existing functions and develop new functions through the exchange of sensor information between various vehicle safety systems. Information about driving dynamics, transmitted by active safety systems (e.g. driving stability systems - ESP) and about the vehicle environment, transmitted by driver assistance systems (e.g. Active Cruise Control - ACC) or other active safety systems, are some examples in this sense. In the first case, the focus lies on the optimized release from restraint systems if the vehicle overturns (Active Rollover - IPAS), whereas in the second case the aim is to improve the protection effects of the restraint systems at front and side crashes by using information about the vehicle environment before the crash phase (APS). Besides the small and medium enterprises LTT Ltd., MicroFuzzy Ltd. and Procitec Ltd., our cooperation partners are AUDI AG and Continental.