How EV shift has changed Autoliv's airbags

The roomier interiors inside the growing wave of full-electric vehicles coming to market have led Autoliv, the world’s largest airbag supplier, to adapt its key passive safety solution.

Autoliv this month unveiled a new passenger airbag module based on Bernoulli's principle that the Swedish supplier says can inflate larger airbags more efficiently as well as reduce development time and cost.

"Our products must meet demands coming from new potential interior designs and EV segments, where space and weight considerations become even more important," Autoliv CEO Mikael Bratt told Automotive News Europe. "By utilizing this technology, we are able to fill bigger airbags quicker and with a more effective inflator."

The design addresses the twin challenges accompanying updated interior design trends for EVs: more spacious interiors with occupants sitting farther from the dashboard, and reduced space within that dashboard to house airbags.

"You have quite a narrow space in which to put an airbag, so you need to be more creative in how you design the airbag module now," he said.

The new Autoliv airbag module, which will reach the market in the third quarter of this year, is based on Swiss mathematician and physicist Daniel Bernoulli's fundamental principles of fluid dynamics. Bernoulli's principle states that an increase in the speed of a fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in static pressure.

Using this principle, Autoliv leveraged pressure differences to utilize more surrounding air when inflating an airbag. As a result, a smaller inflator can be used for a much larger airbag.

Autoliv said the Bernoulli Airbag generates less heat, is lighter and can reduce customer development testing.

Size, gender, seating position

Autoliv Chief Technology Officer Jordi Lombarte said that more advanced sensor technology can be used to design safety systems that correspond to different cabin arrangements and the various positions in which occupants may find themselves.

"These technologies allows us to design systems that respond specifically to the size, gender and seating position," he said. "We are also looking for seat-centric solutions because for some cars, when you are so far away from the instrument panels and you are in a reclined position, some of these elements are more relevant."

Rapid changes

Autoliv’s vice president of research, Cecilia Sunnevang, said automotive technology is developing faster than policymakers can react.

"There is a need for voluntary standards for consumer rating to understand how we make these vehicles safe," she said. "We have collaborations with seat manufacturers, for example, and we develop these relationships to handle the additional complexity."

Lombarte said automakers are making the transition to digitalizing vehicles at different speeds.

"What makes it more difficult is that every customer is having this learning process of how to go from a traditional design of the car to a kind of computer on wheels," he said. "We know some customers struggle to understand what it takes."

Sunnevang said results from real-life traffic investigations are that speed, size and age are factors that influence injury outcomes.

"If we can design an adaptive safety system with the new sensors being integrated into vehicles today, in the future we have an opportunity to make a personalized restraint system we think will improve on what we have today. "

This is enabled by moving into virtual validation of training systems -- from traditional crash test dummies into digital models of humans that can be scaled and adjusted depending on the person.

"The timeline for virtual testing using these human body models is around 2029 or 2030," she said. "To make that happen and efficient, we are relying on tools like machine learning and AI."