Future transport and mobility will be disrupted by innovations in Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs), in which safety will be of the highest priority. June 1st 2020 was the kick-off for SAFE-UP, which aims to proactively address the upcoming safety challenges by developing innovative technologies, testing and assessment methods.

SAFE-UP is based on 3 key pillars: i) future safety-critical scenarios, ii) new safety technologies, and iii) novel safety assessment methodologies. Future safety-critical scenarios will be designed and analysed in a highly automated and mixed traffic environment in the Aimsun Next traffic simulation platform. Based on these scenarios, new safety technologies for active and passive systems will be developed, resulting in 4 Demos:

• The passive safety system of Demo 1 will include restraint and occupant monitoring technologies for new seating positions. Three active safety system prototypes (all on-vehicle, one of them also including on-user and infrastructure) will be developed.
• Demo 2 will enhance the interaction between vehicles and VRUs under bad weather conditions.
  Demo 3 will integrate advanced intervention functions to avoid critical events.
• Demo 4 will consist of a safety solution based on C-ITS to enable timely warning provisions.

The SAFE-UP consortium consists of key players in mobility across the entire value chain: advanced OEMs, leading suppliers & industry, and academia. The new technologies will reduce fatalities by covering pedestrians, cyclists and powered two-wheelers in urban areas through active safety systems; it will also reduce fatalities in cars in non-urban areas through passive safety technologies, which will impact 64% of all road fatalities.

Targeted education and training schemes will foster implementation of automated driving functions, while raising awareness of future road safety challenges.

The SAFE-UP project started on June 1st 2020 and will end on May 31st 2023.

Learn more here.