Exploring advanced restraint technologies for improving safety equity for rear-seat occupants using diverse human...

The rising popularity of ridesharing services and the advances of automated driving systems indicate a potential increase in rear-seat occupancy, especially by vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and people with obesity. However, rear-seat safety has not kept pace with the advancements in front-seat safety technologies. This study addresses these challenges by evaluating the effectiveness of advanced restraint systems, including advanced belt features and a self-conforming rear airbag (SCaRAB), in mitigating injury risks for rear-seat occupants during severe frontal crashes.

Under a 56 kph frontal crash pulse, we simulated 20 baseline and 320 design variations using 20 morphed finite element (FE) human body models and a validated rear-seat crash environment. The FE human models were mesh morphed from the GHBMC v2.3 simplified midsize male model, representing 10 male and 10 female occupants with a wide range of sizes and shapes. The performance of the advanced restraint systems on reducing the head/brain, chest, lower extremity, and whole-body injury (P_joint) risks was evaluated with varying the belt and airbag designs.

Overall, the advanced belt configurations, specifically those with SCaRAB, demonstrated significant whole-body injury risk reduction of up to 42.11% compared to the baseline design. It was observed that shorter obese occupants benefited the most from advanced restraint technologies, while shorter lean occupants benefited the least among the sampled occupants. Trade-offs were observed between head/brain and chest injury risks, as higher belt load limits mitigated head excursion but increased chest deflection, underscoring the complexity of achieving safety equity across a diverse population.

This study highlights the potential of advanced restraint technologies to enhance rear-seat occupant protection and address different safety needs across a diverse population.