Safety benefits of motorized seat belt as a component in ADAS in front-end collisions

This paper estimates the benefits of the motorized seat belt in ADAS in both safety and economic aspects. The motorized seat belt could reduce the forward displacement of occupants during brake, which could result in more severe injuries in frontal crashes. A MADYMO model is used to simulate the forward displacement of the driver during brake. Sled tests verify that drivers have higher injury risk in more forward displaced position. Statistics analysis is also conducted to have a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of the motorized seat belt. A nationally representative set of frontal collisions is studied as if the drivers having no avoidance maneuver are restrained in the nominal seating position. The results show that the injury number is reduced by 53,202 with the motorized seat belt. The method innovated in this paper can be employed to estimated benefits of other vehicle safety technologies.