Powered two-wheeler (PTW) users are exposed to a high risk of accidents leading to severe injuries and fatalities. The trend of PTW accidents has pointed out the need for an intervention on PTW safety with new and effective solutions. One of the possible answers came from the EC-funded Powered two wheeler Integrated Safety (PISa) project which identified the autonomous braking of the vehicle as one of the most promising safety functions for PTWs.The aim of this paper is to report on the design of the decision logic for deploying a PTW autonomous braking system in case of an imminent collision. Rationales and limitations for this pioneering application are given. The feasibility of the autonomous deceleration is demonstrated by an experimental study conducted with the PISa test bike implementing a prototype of the autonomous braking system, named the Active Braking (AB) system.
Abstract. In the context of industrial engineering it is important to integrate efficient computational optimization methods in the product development process. Some of the most challenging simulation based engineering design optimization problems are characterized by: a large number of design variables, the absence of analytical gradient information, highly non-linear objectives and a limited function evaluation budget. Although a huge variety of different optimization algorithms is available, the development and selection of efficient algorithms for problems with these industrial relevant characteristics, remains a challenge. In this communication a hybrid variant of Differential Evolution (DE) is introduced which combines aspects of Stochastic Quasi-Gradient (SQG) methods within the framework of DE, in order to improve optimization efficiency on problems with the previously mentioned characteristics. The performance of the resulting method is compared with other state-of-the-art DE variants on 25 commonly used test functions, under tight function evaluation budget constraints of 1000 evaluations. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method performs particularly good on the "difficult" (high dimensional, multi-modal, inseparable) test functions. The operations used in the proposed mutation scheme, are computationally inexpensive, and can be easily implemented in existing differential evolution or other optimization algorithms by a few lines of program code as an non-invasive optional setting. Besides the applicability of the presented algorithm by itself, the described concepts can serve as a useful and interesting addition to the algorithmic operators in the frameworks of heuristics and evolutionary optimization and computing.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and quantitative potential benefits of a motorcycle autonomous emergency braking (MAEB) system in fatal rear-end crashes. A further aim was to identify possible criticalities of this safety system in the field of powered 2-wheelers (PTWs; e.g., any additional risk introduced by the system itself).Methods: Seven relevant cases from the Swedish national in-depth fatal crash database were selected. All crashes involved carfollowing in which a non-anti-lock braking system (ABS)-equipped motorcycle was the bullet vehicle. Those crashes were reconstructed in a virtual environment with Prescan, simulating the road scenario, the vehicles involved, their precrash trajectories, ABS, and, alternatively, MAEB. The MAEB chosen as reference for the investigation was developed within the European Commission-funded Powered Two-Wheeler Integrated Safety (PISa) project and further detailed in later studies, with the addition of the ABS functionality. The boundary conditions of each simulation varied within a range compatible with the uncertainty of the in-depth data and also included a range of possible rider behaviors including the actual one. The benefits of the MAEB were evaluated by comparing the simulated impact speed in each configuration (no ABS/MAEB, ABS only, MAEB).Results: The MAEB proved to be beneficial in a large number of cases. When applicable, the benefits of the system were in line with the expected values. When not applicable, there was no clear evidence of an increased risk for the rider due to the system. Discussion and Limitations: MAEB represents an innovative safety device in the field of PTWs, and the feasibility of such a system was investigated with promising results. Nevertheless, this technology is not mature yet for PTW application. Research in the field of passenger cars does not directly apply to PTWs because the activation logic of a braking system is more challenging on PTWs. The deployment of an autonomous deceleration would affect the vehicle dynamics, thus requesting an additional control action of the rider to keep the vehicle stable. In addition, the potential effectiveness of the MAEB should be investigated on a wider set of crash scenarios in order also to avoid false triggering of the autonomous braking.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.