Kinematic Analysis of Head/Neck Motion in Pedestrian-Vehicle Collisions Using 6-Degree-of-Freedom Instrumentation Cubes

Given the quantity and severity of head injuries to pedestrians in vehicle-to-pedestrian collisions, human pedestrian finite element models and pedestrian dummies must possess a biofidelic head/neck response to accurately reproduce head-strike kinematics and kinetics. Full-scale pedestrian impact experiments were performed on post-mortem human surrogates (PMHS) using a mid-sized sport utility vehicle and a small sedan. Kinematics of the head and torso were obtained with a six-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) cube, which contained three orthogonally mounted linear accelerometers and three angular rate sensors. The goal of the current study was to present a methodology for analyzing the data obtained from the sensors on each cube, and to use the kinematics data to calculate spatial trajectories, as well as linear velocities and angular accelerations of the head and T1 vertebra. The analysis procedures were checked by computing kinematics for artificial input motions and by comparing planar pedestrian trajectories with those obtained from video analysis. The results of this study will serve as the basis for future pedestrian model and dummy neck evaluations.