Evaluation of Event Data Recorders in Full Systems Crash Tests

The Event Data Recorders (EDRs), now being installed as standard equipment by several automakers, are increasingly being used as an independent measurement of crash severity, which avoids many of the difficulties of traditional crash reconstruction methods. Little has been published however about the accuracy of the data recorded by the current generation of EDRs in a real world collision. Previous studies have been limited to a single automaker and full frontal barrier impacts at a single test speed. This paper presents the results of a methodical evaluation of the accuracy of newgeneration (2000-2004) EDRs from General Motors, Ford, and Toyota in laboratory crash tests across a wide spectrum of impact conditions. The study evaluates the performance of EDRs by comparison with the laboratory-grade accelerometers mounted onboard test vehicles subjected to crash loading over a wide range of impact speeds, collision partners, and crash modes including full frontal barrier, frontaloffset, side impact, and angled frontal-offset impacts. The study concludes that, if the EDR recorded the full crash pulse, the EDR average error in frontal crash pulses was just under six percent when compared with crash test accelerometers. In many cases, however, current EDRs do not record the complete crash pulse resulting in a substantial underestimate of delta-V.