A Sensor Suite for Toeboard Three-Dimensional Deformation Measurement During Crash

This paper presents the development of a sensor suite that is used to measure the toeboard threedimensional (3D) dynamic deformation during a crash test, along with the methodology to use the sensor suite for toeboard measurement. The sensor suite consists of three high-speed cameras, which are firmly connected through a rigid metal frame. Two cameras, facing directly towards the toeboard, measure the shape of the toeboard through stereovision. The third camera, facing the ground, is equipped with a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer and localizes the sensor suite globally for removing the vibration of the sensor suite. The sensor suite was mounted onto the car through car seat mounting bolt holes, and a hole was made on the floor to let the downward camera see the ground. A pipeline using the data collected by the sensor suite is also introduced in this paper. A 56 km/h frontal barrier crash test was conducted to validate the capability of the sensor suite and a sled test was conducted to test the measuring accuracy of the purposed system. The results show that the proposed sensor suite identified its position and orientation, which allowed the removal of vibration of the stereo camera. The measuring accuracy, which is neither temporal nor positional, was 1.3 mm. The proposed methodology, as a result, has measured the global 3D deformation of the toeboard during crash with a measuring accuracy of 1.3mm.