Research on Collision Response of Elderly Occupant in Autonomous Vehicles

The age of global aging is coming. Autonomous vehicles will be the most convenient means of transportation for the elderly, which can reduce traffic accidents caused by operational errors. Autonomous cars rely on sensors such as radar to identify the unavoidable collisions about 350 ms before the collision of the car. This period of time is essential for the active safety protection of occupants. A method of changing the relative position of the seat orientation and the collision direction by rotating the seat is proposed, thereby improving the collision safety of elderly occupants in autonomous vehicles. Firstly, the finite element model of the elderly occupants is verified by the corpse experimental data. Secondly, the validated model is then applied to the frontal collision test of autonomous vehicles to analyze the collision response of the elderly in different seat orientations(0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, 180°). The motion response of elderly occupants during seat rotation is studied. Finally, the risk of injury when the elderly occupant rotates in the autonomous rotating seat is analyzed. The results show that the risk of injury is lowest when the seat orientation is 180° from the collision direction. By rotating the seat to a position 180° from the collision direction within 200 ms, the risk of injury to elderly occupants is below the threshold. The research shows that an autonomous vehicle should adjust the seat orientation as early as possible when it detects an unavoidable collision. If the seat orientation can be adjusted to a "backward" position of 180° within 350 ms before the collision, it will be beneficial to reduce the injury of elderly occupants.