Quintet co-operate on automotive safety standards

Five of the world's leading automotive safety and automotive electronics companies have formed Safe-by-Wire.

Five of the world's leading automotive safety and automotive electronics companies have formed Safe-by-Wire, an industry consortium for the development of an industry standard automotive safety bus targeted for use in restraint systems.

The consortium represents a broad cross-section of automotive suppliers including Autoliv, Delphi Automotive Systems, Philips Semiconductors, Special Devices and TRW.

Autoliv, Delphi and TRW are recognised leaders in the automotive safety arena, SDI is one of the largest suppliers of air bag initiators, and Philips Semiconductors is a leader in vehicle networking technology and one of the world's largest suppliers of semiconductors.

The Safe-by-Wire consortium has agreed to co-operate in the selection of standards for a sensor and deployment bus for the next generation of safety systems.

The consortium is open for anyone to join.

Each company is allowed to participate as a contributor to or as a promoter of the specification without paying license fees or royalties.

Members agree to work together to define the best overall bus solution to meet the unique requirements of a safety system.

Future safety systems will require numerous safety components and sensors, including adaptive air bags for driver and front passenger seat positions, knee bolster air bags, side impact air bags for all outboard seat positions, seat belt pretensioners, rollover air bags, seat belt buckle switches, side impact and under-hood crush zone sensors, weight sensors, occupant sensors and seat position sensors.

By defining a standardised bus interface for the sensors and restraint components, crash sensor design may be substantially simplified, allowing rapid customisation and reduced development costs.

The bus interface must be flexible enough to support all the various restraint functions and be cost effective and failsafe.

Through the definition of a bus standard that meets these objectives, OEMs will realise the benefit of plug and play performance and the cost reductions that arise from economies of scale.

The proposed bus specification benefits from two years of prior work conducted by consortium members and other companies in the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) initiative to develop a safety bus standard.

The solution proposed by this consortium is a culmination of consortium efforts to distill the best technical approaches reviewed during USCAR safety bus meetings to define a solution that uniquely meets all the requirements for an automotive safety bus.

As a result, rapid acceptance by OEMs and suppliers is expected.

The consortium has approved the initial specification draft and plans to publish the bus specification later this month.

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