In the near future road cars will be able to detect probable collisions before they happen. Then it will be possible to avoid some accidents by specific actions of driver assistance systems. If a crash is unpreventable, the passenger can be prepared for the collision during the residual time.

This project determines the potential for a reduction of the injury-risk for car-occupants through an airbag deployment considerably before t0. The goal is to demonstrate possible improvements in order to stimulate the further development of pre-crash-sensors. Through the pre-crash deployment of the airbag various advantages for the occupant can be obtained:​ If the airbag is fired before t0 it can be designed in a significantly bigger way in comparison to conventional trigger times because the passenger hasn’t moved forward. Thereby a very early coupling of the passenger and resulting low loads are achieved. Another advantage is that the airbag can be inflated more slowly due to much more time available. So the deployment of the airbag can be performed in a gentle way which leads to a less aggressive system that promises improvements especially in out-of-position (OOP) situations.

There is still no future perspective for a hundred percent detection rate of pre-crash-sensors, so the airbag-system will additionally be designed for conventional trigger times. It is mandatory that in case of a failure of the pre-crash-sensors the occupant is protected at least as well as in today’s series-production vehicles.

This analysis investigating the potential of precrash activated airbags is based on multibodysimulations with different dummies and crashscenarios. The results of the simulations are going to be verified by principle tests and full-scale sled tests.