Highly innovative ADAS perception solutions for pedestrian safety improvement and their testing, validation and standardization
Information
Most new vehicles sold in 2018 (56%) had, as either a standard or optional feature, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) equipped with pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB). However, current testing protocols implemented by safety organizations and programs, such as Euro NCAP, NCAP and IIHS largely do not evaluate the performance of PAEB in dark conditions without streetlights. This is true despite data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) showing that more pedestrian fatalities occur in dark conditions without streetlights than in daylight conditions. Additionally, independent tests conducted by NHTSA and the American Automobile Association (AAA) reveal that in every scenario considered, PAEB systems frequently fail to protect pedestrians in dark conditions. Within this context, to encourage improvement in PAEB performance and increase night-time pedestrian safety, this presentation includes the following sections: 1) A proposal for the expansion, in future testing protocols, of PAEB tests conducted in dark, night-time conditions. More precisely, we propose expanded testing in less than 1 lux (lx) ambient illuminance, using low-beam headlights, and without streetlights; 2) Results of Velodyne’s night-time PAEB tests comparing a lidar-based system with one example of current camera and radar-based technology; 3) An overview of Velodyne’s PAEB solution.
