Comparison of Occupant Sensor Responses to the 6-Year-Old Hybrid III and Similarly Sized Children

The introduction of occupant position sensors into automobiles raises questions about the response of these sensors to the child crash test dummies and the relationship of these responses to those of child human subjects. This paper extends earlier work on the small female and mid-sized male Hybrid IIIs to new work on the 6-year-old Hybrid III. Testing was conducted with 6 year-old children human volunteer subjects using three sensor technologies, capacitive, electric field, and ultrasonic. This testing was conducted in the laboratory with the sensors mounted at the face/chest level of the children. The capacitive and electric field sensor responses to the 6 year-old Hybrid III and children were more similar than the response of the sensors to the 5^th percentile female and 50^th percentile male Hybrid III crash test dummies to the comparable adult human subjects. The ultrasonic test results for child human subjects and 6-Year-Old Hybrid III followed the same pattern as that found in the adult test results.