Shown to complicated journalists at Honda R&D Americas last week, one day next year the luggage can begin to see active duty in new models. Developed in conjunction with Autoliv, not Takata, the carmaker claims that it is automotive safety at the future level.
“This new airbag technology represents Honda’s continued effort to advance safety performance in an exceedingly wider style of crash eventualities and reflects the innovative thinking that our engineers square measure transferral to the challenge of reducing traffic injuries and fatalities,” aforementioned Jim lecturer, President of Honda R&D Americas, in an exceedingly statement. “Guided by Honda’s ‘Safety for Everyone’ commitment, our engineers acknowledge that their work on this kind of breakthrough safety technology can have sweeping effects on peoples’ lives for several years to come back.”
The new airbag utilizes four major parts. There square measure 3 inflated compartments — a middle chamber and 2 outward-projecting aspect chambers that make a large base across the dash — s well as a “sail panel” that stretches between the 2 aspect chambers at their outer edge. Honda used a glove as associate degree analogy, spoken communication the sail panel catches and decelerates the occupant’s head whereas conjointly partaking the aspect chambers, pull them inward to cradle and shield the top sort of a catcher’s mitt. however bearing on the panels as “super-absorbent wings” would even have been associate degree apt figure of speech.
Regardless, the speculation is that the same — confirm the heads/baseballs/drops of blue water find yourself channeled into the soft bits of the device, rather than being deflected away. the remainder of the bag is specializing in decelerating craniums as step by step as doable to additional mitigate head injuries.
Our own Chris Tonn shared some footage of the bag in action at sibling-site AutoGuide, whereas conjointly noting that there’s presently no accepted normal for brain-specific injuries. The established os normal, presently utilized by National route Traffic Safety Administration, is that the Head Injury Criterion (HIC). however Honda is victimization Brain Injury Criterion (BrIC), that the NHTSA has thought-about adopting, to verify the airbag’s artistry. Engineer Eric Heitkamp aforementioned the system effectively interprets to a 75-percent reduction in BrIC — a number of that is thanks to fastness head rotation and keeping skulls from slithering off the bag.
“Looking at the real-world information, we will tell that over fifty six p.c of those real-world crashes have some level of angulate impact. I mean, it’s not straight into a wall or to a tree or one thing,” Heitkamp, told Automotive News in associate degree interview. “So we have a tendency to recognized that we'd like a restraint system that may improve at the angle-type collisions.”
While we’ve no clue on that models the manufacturer plans on beginning with in 2020, odds square measure smart that this airbag can step by step become omnipresent. different makers eventually gain access to the bag, as well. however they’ll have to be compelled to watch for Autoliv’s exclusivity manage Honda/Acura to expire.
