Restraint systems for maximum occupant protection

In order to provide the best possible protection for vehicle occupants in the event of a crash, all the restraint systems available in the vehicle must work together optimally. Nowadays, this includes vehicle seats with active seat functions, multi-point safety belts with belt tensioners, airbags that are coordinated with each other in the interior and pre-crash functions that, in conjunction with sophisticated sensor technology, ensure that the occupants are moved into the best possible position in the event of a foreseeable accident.

Fraunhofer EMI supports suppliers and OEMs with an extensive portfolio of tests at material, component, subsystem and full vehicle level, accompanying simulations and AI methods as well as the use of state-of-the-art diagnostics in the development and testing of restraint systems. The interdisciplinary expertise in the field of airbag systems, which is continuously further developed at Fraunhofer EMI, can be cited as an example of a success factor. Current research questions from our customers concern the visualization of gas flows inside the airbag, improvements to specimen geometries for the structural-mechanical characterization of airbag fabrics and movements of the airbag inside the component that can only be visualized using X-ray technology, long before predetermined breaking points allow the airbag to deploy freely. Adaptive restraint systems that take into account the individual characteristics of the occupants, for example with regard to their alertness, posture or other measurable biomechanical variables, in order to implement even more precisely tailored measures for the best possible protection, open up another exciting field of activity. In this regard, the expertise in the area of human body and dummy models will be transferred to the newly founded research group “Body Protection and Occupant Safety”, which will focus intensively on the industrial requirements expressed by customers.