Forward Collision Mitigation Systems: A Safety Benefits Analysis for Commercial Vehicles via Hardware-in- the-loop Simulation

Forward collision mitigation systems (FCMS) are becoming standard in passenger car vehicles with the current trend of safety technologies development. Currently, safety systems are on the road towards widespread acceptance in the commercial vehicle industry. Whereas the full Electronic Stability Control (ESC) system attempts to sense the states of the vehicle to assist the driver to maintain directional control of the vehicle, current FCMS attempts to sense the environment around the front of the vehicle and either warns the driver to react or intervenes by slowing down the vehicle autonomously. Some of the latest developments in FCMS for commercial vehicles will be discussed, together with an outlook of future systems. This study will also examine some of the common scenarios that forward collision mitigation systems can be beneficial in, especially for commercial vehicles. The scenarios will be investigated using Hardware-in-loop-simulation, and the results discussed.