Citation

Neubohn A, Weiss C, Keck F, Kuhn A. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 2005; 2005: 13p.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The competence of developing and assessing new features is one of the core tasks of car manufacturers. To satisfy this demand, Audi and Volkswagen started the KISS (key competence integrative safety systems) project. The main goal of KISS is to increase the development and assessment competence of occupant restraint systems throughout the complete development process, which consists of the actual vehicle, the occupants, the restraint systems, sensors, airbag control unit and the algorithm which is implemented to control the deployment of protective measures. Because KISS kicks in at the very beginning of the development process when essential properties are yet to be defined and boundary conditions are still fluid (e.g., package, system architecture), KISS is able to lay the groundwork for an effective and – concerning its complexity – controllable occupant restraint system. Along with conventional car and occupant simulations FEM crash simulations can also be increasingly used for the optimized placement of crash sensors and the computation of sensor signals. Using modern mathematical methods of signal classification, these signals are utilized to generate a first implementation of a crash classifying algorithm. Using stochastical and statistical methods the robustness of a solution can be assessed in a qualified way long before hardware for tests is actually available. The universal and integrative design of the system is driven by the requirements. Starting with the global request “Protect each occupant as well as possible in each crash situation” one can derive different requirements for the restraint systems, the control unit, the sensor system and the crash algorithm. KISS enables considerable acceleration of the entire development process. The realisation of new, innovative systems is only possible in close collaboration with system suppliers. A structured approach based, e.g., on the V-model starts with a detailed analysis of the requirements to be satisfied. Based on these requirements different solution concepts are created. One of the concepts is finally chosen and implemented. Despite the different focus of car manufacturers and system suppliers in the development process, it is crucial to build up overlapping areas of expertise and competence to jointly develop innovative, robust and cost-optimized solutions. This presentation gives a survey of the content, the interaction of the processes and technologies used in the KISS project and their impact on the future role allocation between OEM and system suppliers.