Crash Test Dummy

Data acquisition in transition

At qinsun’s development site, approximately 550 sled tests and 450 crash tests are currently performed per year. “With such a high number of tests, we wanted to bring our test equipment up to date with the latest technology to ensure efficient processes and guarantee accurate, reliable measurement data,” says Thomas Wild, team manager for Measurement and Video Technology at Continental Safety Engineering. “In general, the requirements on the test scope are increasing and with them the number of vehicle measurement points,” continues Wild. The number of sensors needed in a crash test is constantly increasing: while just 246 analog measurement channels were controlled and processed in 1993, the number can exceed 600 today. At the same time, the installation space available in the vehicle is decreasing. A further motivation was to increase the reliability of the system and to minimize the error rate. Setup times needed to be shortened and the number of analog input channels reduced”.