Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) refer to technologies that are designed to assist drivers in safely operating a vehicle. Given that most road accidents result from human error, ADAS aim to automate, adapt and enhance vehicle technology for improved safety and driving experience. As ADAS continues to evolve, more advanced systems are becoming available, often with the ability to facilitate progressively higher levels of automated driving.
Collision Reconstruction expert, Robert Taylor, has undertaken research into Advanced Emergency Braking Systems (AEBS), which is a type of ADAS. His research is the first of its kind to review the performance of AEBS in a sample of 10 cars commonly used in the UK, and can be used to compare system performance to the reactions of humans, to determine which is the most likely to have applied the brakes in the event of a collision.
The research involved subjecting each car to testing at 20 mph and 30 mph, with scenarios where a pedestrian dummy approached the car’s path perpendicularly from either side. The data was analysed to determine the period that elapsed between the pedestrian dummy first becoming visible from behind an obscuring fence, and full-rate braking being achieved by the AEB system.
Robert documented the results in his research paper: Brake Response Times of Advanced Emergency Braking Systems and presented this at the 32nd Annual Congress of the European Association for Accident Research and Analysis (EVU) in Kufstein, Austria. He provided an overview of the test methodology, which included using EuroNCAP certified equipment and the Dynamics Pad facility at UTAC Millbrook, and a summary of the key findings.
Robert is a Forensic Collision Investigator and a Chartered Mechanical Engineer. Before joining Hawkins, Robert worked at Millbrook for nine years, specialising in ADAS. He has completed a variety of test, development, and certification programmes for AEBS, Lane Support Systems, and other active safety features. He was instrumental in developing the Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) and Blind Spot Warning (BSW) detection test protocols in Transport for London’s Bus Safety Standard. Robert is experienced in analysing vehicle data for failure analysis, and investigating signals from CANbus, FlexRay, camera, sensors, and vehicle-to-vehicle data, in order to determine the causes of collisions whilst active safety systems were active. Robert has given evidence as an expert in Crown Court and regularly investigates road traffic collisions (RTC), personal injury claims, mechanical vehicle failures, and damage sustained to vehicles.
If you would like Robert or any of our Road Traffic Collision experts to present to your organisation or to carry out an investigation, please contact us.
