| Camera heads just two centimetres in diameter will allow engineers at Millbrook, one of Europe’s leading vehicle test and development centres, to reveal safety-critical interactions in areas never previously seen during impacts. The new technology is expected to help Millbrook’s customers increase safety performance in a wide range of areas and may also lead to cost savings through design simplification.
A camera 2cm in diameter that helps engineers at Millbrook see safety-critical interactions in areas never previously seen during impacts |
|
 |
“The industry has tremendous knowledge of how vehicle structures behave in impacts. Modelling techniques are consequently pretty accurate and impact performance is good,” explains Millbrook’s crashworthiness manager, Andrew Beach. “The challenge now is to refine our understanding of the critical interactions outside the main structures. The access that these new cameras provide will allow us to see exactly what is happening in these areas, potentially unlocking significant further improvements in crashworthiness.”
Today’s cameras provide excellent image quality, but they require a lot of additional lighting, their size prevents them being mounted in small spaces, and their weight means that they can only be mounted in locations where they will not significantly affect the results of the test. Millbrook will be the first commercial test centre to acquire a new generation of multi-head cameras, developed by NAC Image Technology, that overcome these problems.
The new camera system uses separate recording and camera head modules connected by a robust umbilical. Each recording module can collect images from up to four camera heads, reducing the weight of the system by 75 percent compared to today’s best camera systems. The latest anti-blooming CMOS digital camera chips provide compact image capture at up to 10,000 pictures per second, with a high resolution ‘megapixel’ capability giving an option to take resolution up to 1280 x 1024 pixels at 1,000 pictures per second when using a single head.
Areas to benefit from the new data will include occupant head contact with the header rail (which can now be viewed along the rail), pedal motion (which can now be viewed from the side and from above), side airbag deployment (which can be viewed from any angle), and steering column movement (the camera can now look up the column without interfering with the dummy’s feet). The relatively low cost of the camera heads also makes it possible to mount them in positions where they may be damaged during the event.
“Another potentially very interesting benefit is that even the smallest camera heads don’t need much light,” continues Beach. “This means that we can look in areas where traditional lights will not fit, such as in the engine compartment or in hidden areas under the vehicle. This could help our customers increase their understanding of fuel leakage issues and, potentially very exciting, reveal how pedestrians impacting the vehicle interact with engine components and ancillaries.
Millbrook has already acquired three recording modules, twelve standard camera heads (80x80x94 mm diameter) and four microcamera heads (21 mm diameter). The £300,000 investment is part of an on-going programme designed to meet anticipated growth in customer requirements for non-intrusive capture of images and data.
“The multi-head camera system, along with the recently acquired G5 micro data acquisition system, is a key element in our strategy to remove the physical limitations imposed by today’s instrumentation,” continues Beach. “Our customers want instrumentation that reveals new areas of interaction and does not significantly affect any aspect of the test. We believe that Millbrook today offers the finest capability in this area for any aspect of safety analysis.” |
|
