This paper describes tests performed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to evaluate the forward collision warning (FCW) systems installed on three late model passenger cars. NHTSA defines an FCW system as one intended to passively assist the driver in avoiding or mitigating a rear-end collision via presentation of audible, visual, and/or haptic alerts, or any combination thereof. The test maneuvers described were designed to emulate the top three most common rear-end pre-crash scenarios reported in the 2004 GES database.

FCW system performance was quantified by specifying the average time-to-collision (TTC) between the subject vehicle (SV) and principle other vehicle (POV) at the time of the SV’s FCW alert.