How automotive safety testing standards need to be improved

Vehicles with automatic emergency braking systems may be vulnerable when driving at night or into harsh sunlight, and current testing standards fall short of the mark to address the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists and other vulnerable road users. There is significant room for improvement.

An October 2019 report based on AAA testing showed that automatic emergency braking available in consumer vehicles today to detect and stop for pedestrians had shortcomings and was "ineffective during nighttime conditions." Pedestrian deaths continue to rise on roadways worldwide, with over 6,000 pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. in 2019.

Current testing done by NHTSA and the European New Car Assessment Program has standard protocols in place that allow visible cameras and radar emergency braking to seem effective. However, these testing protocols are not designed to simulate all driving environments. Testing methods need to address and simulate situations where pedestrians are being hit in real life, such as nighttime scenarios. As the testing gets harder to pass, automakers will start to deploy systems that are more capable so these braking systems can more effectively improve vehicle safety.

Perception with thermal cameras will soon become an option that automakers can add to vehicles to pass nighttime tests. After all, 75 percent of pedestrian fatalities occur at night, yet U.S. testing doesn't include nighttime scenarios, and Euro NCAP has procedures that include well-lit streets, but those don't account for real-world nighttime scenarios.

Researcher VSI Labs has examined how adding a thermal camera with a trained neural network and fusing it with radar data can improve pedestrian detection above current braking systems that use a visible camera and radar. VSI designed tests to examine performance in conditions not currently included in recognized testing protocols. The results showed comparable performance on several baseline Euro NCAP tests for the thermal-radar fused system as well as significantly improved performance in challenging real-world conditions, including when a pedestrian's clothing blends into a background, sun glare is present, and a child enters the roadway from behind a parked car at night.

Nighttime testing scenarios will require facilities to create heated soft pedestrian targets to more accurately simulate real driving situations. These targets mimic human body temperature and allow for thermal camera testing not currently feasible with existing regulatory testing protocols. Currently, only unheated standard targets developed to simulate pedestrians have been agreed upon by testing agencies. Adding heat to the targets will allow thermal cameras to showcase the value they bring to safety features in daytime, nighttime and other challenging conditions.

Beyond automatic braking testing, there are a significant number of autonomous vehicles testing on roadways today, which involves significantly more complex technology and capability — they are oftentimes tested without safety drivers. It is clear that standard testing protocols for braking systems need improvement, but autonomous vehicle testing also comes into question, as it is even more complex.

The final piece of the puzzle to improve testing standards is growing public awareness. As it stands today, there is a great deal of consumer uncertainty over negative headlines about failing autonomous vehicles on public roads. If testing standards are strengthened and widely known, the public's perception of advanced driver-assistance systems and AV features would change, thus driving change to make vehicles safer.