Honda has been studying ways of improving vehicle design to reduce the severity of pedestrian injury. Full-scale test using a pedestrian dummy is an important way to assess the aggressiveness of a vehicle to pedestrians. However, from test results it is concluded that current pedestrian dummies have stiffer characteristics than Post Mortem Human Subjects (PMHS). Also, the dummy kinematics during a collision is different from that of a human body. Because of the limitations of current dummies, it was decided to develop a new pedestrian dummy.
At the first stage of the project, a computer simulation model that represented the PMHS tests was developed. Joint characteristics obtained from the simulation model were used in building a new pedestrian dummy which has been named Polar I.
The advanced frontal crash test dummy, known as Thor, was selected as the base dummy. Modifications were made for the thorax, spine, knee etc. Component tests were conducted to obtain and check the characteristics of each part. An initial series of full-scale tests was conducted and the kinematics of the dummy was compared with PMHS test results.