Photo: AB Dynamics
Aggressive driving and speeding are becoming more common with higher levels of travel and traffic congestion. With safety watchdogs placing an increased emphasis on prevention, a company called AB Dynamics decided it's time to up the ante, and came up with what is described as the world's fastest self-propelled soft target.
Officially called Guided Soft Target 120 (GST120), the system is in fact a test tool that reproduces different driving scenarios, and the Euro NCAP and NHTSA have approved it as the global vehicle target for ADAS testing.
The GST comes with a dummy vehicle named the Soft Car 360 made out of collapsible foam pieces. The Soft Car is fixed to a remotely operated platform, and can be overrun by another vehicle without taking any damage.
The GST120 comes with a 4.8 kWh battery and an integrated ABS that allows controlled braking up to 0.8g. The ABS enables fast deceleration, which is required to safely test emergency braking systems' performance in high-speed car-to-car scenarios.
With a top speed of 120 kph (75 mph), the GST120 is according to its maker the world's fastest self-propelled soft target for advanced vehicle testing.
Additional features include visual and radar characteristics and post-processing and graphing software utilities. The latter has a key role in reducing the processing time and supporting the scenarios required for autonomous vehicle testing.
"The GST120 retains all the convenience features of our existing self-propelled GST vehicles, such as being rebuildable in under eight minutes and minimizing collision damage to the test vehicle, but comes with extended speed capability and an enhanced range of software tools," says Dr. Andrew Pick, Track Testing Director at AB Dynamics.
AB Dynamics is one of the biggest suppliers of safety systems for the industry, focusing on the development of ADAS technology, suspension, chassis, and steering.
The GST comes with a dummy vehicle named the Soft Car 360 made out of collapsible foam pieces. The Soft Car is fixed to a remotely operated platform, and can be overrun by another vehicle without taking any damage.
The GST120 comes with a 4.8 kWh battery and an integrated ABS that allows controlled braking up to 0.8g. The ABS enables fast deceleration, which is required to safely test emergency braking systems' performance in high-speed car-to-car scenarios.
With a top speed of 120 kph (75 mph), the GST120 is according to its maker the world's fastest self-propelled soft target for advanced vehicle testing.
Additional features include visual and radar characteristics and post-processing and graphing software utilities. The latter has a key role in reducing the processing time and supporting the scenarios required for autonomous vehicle testing.
"The GST120 retains all the convenience features of our existing self-propelled GST vehicles, such as being rebuildable in under eight minutes and minimizing collision damage to the test vehicle, but comes with extended speed capability and an enhanced range of software tools," says Dr. Andrew Pick, Track Testing Director at AB Dynamics.
AB Dynamics is one of the biggest suppliers of safety systems for the industry, focusing on the development of ADAS technology, suspension, chassis, and steering.
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