Improving safety of Vulnerable Road Users by addressing barriers of current Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) systems.

Accidents involving Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) are a very important issue for road safety. The objective of the PROSPECT project is to improve significantly the effectiveness of active VRU safety systems by: (i) expanding the scope of urban scenarios addressed (ii) improving the system performance (iii) proposing extensive validation tools and methodologies for consumer testing, simulation and acceptance studies. Concepts for sensors and control systems were shown in three vehicle demonstrators and a mobile driving simulator and tested with novel VRU dummy specimen. User acceptance tests with the participation of drivers were crucial in PROSPECT for the success of all active safety systems. Driving simulator studies were used in a controlled environment for the collection of data regarding the interaction between the driver and the safety function. A benefit estimation methodology was developed and includes an assessment of the combined effect of active and passive safety measures of PROSPECT-like systems.