Active Control of Vehicle Occupant's Motion in Front- and Rear- End Collisions

A new method to actively control the occupant's body motion in front- and rear- end impacts is develped. The independent motions of each of the occupant's head, thorax-abdomen, and pelvis-lower limbs are described by a three-degree of freedom nonlinear model. The feedback control effort is applied on the seat frame, which is allowed to move longitudinally in response to the body motion signals. To show the effectiveness of the current approach, simulation test cases representing front and rear end collisions to standard disturbing decelerations are presented and compared to the corresponding conventional restraint systems. In all cases the current approach demonstrates its effectiveness in reducing the load and strain significantly on various parts of the occupant's body inclding the neck, thorax and pelvis.