This paper assesses the safety benefits of a typical Autonomous Emergency Braking System (AEBS) followed by a subsequent 25mph rigid wall impact using a 50th percentile active human model including full muscle activity behaviour. Occupant kinematics as a function of various postures and states of awareness are investigated to determine the degree of out-of-position and their respective chest, neck and head injuries.

The study concludes that the Madymo Active Human Model is suited to model active safety scenarios and that the generated kinematics and injuries provided are plausible.

The study has established that, within the active safety scenario investigated, the occupant's kinematics depend on the seat friction coefficient, arms' kinematics and the level of awareness. Overall, it has been observed that for a reflex delayed response of less than 120ms that chest, neck and head injuries values for gripping the steering wheel with 2 hands were comparable for a given value of seat friction. Alternatively, occupants with 1 hand on the steering wheel (holding a mobile phone for example) were out of the airbag deployment zone after 1.1s of extreme braking regardless of their state of awareness and seat friction value.