Characterizing the Capability of a Rear-End Crash Avoidance System

This paper presents a framework to characterize the capability of an automotive rear-end crash avoidance system that integrates forward crash warning and adaptive cruise control functionalities. This system characterization describes the operational performance of the system and its main components in the driving environment, based on data to be collected from instrumented vehicles driven by volunteer subjects as their own vehicles under real-world conditions. This characterization is pursuing a number of objectives dealing with the capability of system components including the forward-looking sensor suite, alert logic, automatic vehicle controls, and driver-vehicle interface. A number of subobjectives and concomitant measures are delineated. Examples are provided to illustrate the analysis process of this framework based on data recently collected from system verification tests.