Integrated Safety of Intelligent Vehicle Collisions: Investigating the Influence of Automatic Emergency Steering on Driver Out-of-Position Injuries

In dangerous traffic scenarios where obstacles suddenly appear ahead, intelligent vehicles can employ Automatic Emergency Steering (AES) to avoid collisions or reduce collision severity. However, in diverse road traffic environments with highly unpredictable events, vehicles in the process of steering due to AES intervention may still collide with other vehicles. Research on this topic remains scarce. Therefore, this study constructs multiple typical collision scenarios involving intelligent vehicles during AES-induced steering maneuvers, extracts the positional deviations of drivers due to steering, and conducts a comprehensive simulation of both active and passive vehicle responses throughout the steering-to-collision process. Ultimately, the collision risk of AES intervention on the driver's out-of-position (OOP) and the injury risk are deeply evaluated under various typical collision cases. It is found that AES intervention in emergency situations causes significant lateral OOP of the driver, which affects the protective effectiveness of the restraint system and increases the head injury risk (according to HIC 15 and BrIC injury criteria), especially in frontal and far-side collisions. In far-side collisions, although lateral rotational motion results in a higher injury risk based on BrIC, MPS and CSDM0.25 compared to HIC 15 analysis, the driver’s head does not make direct contact with the vehicle interior, leading to the lightest head injury in this case. In other cases, hard contact between the driver’s head and the steering wheel or rigid pillars leads to higher MPS and CSDM0.25 values. Cervical spine forces remain within safe limits, but the ligament strain in the neck, particularly in joint capsule ligaments and interspinous ligaments, presents a significant injury risk. Furthermore, the restraint system poses a considerable risk of chest and visceral injuries to the displaced driver. Neck ligament and thoracic visceral injury assessment, which the current evaluation protocols fail to consider, requires special attention in future occupant injury protection designs for intelligent vehicles.