Kundemagasin mars 2012 (pdf) - Cowi

It is the work of an instant. A stressed-out businessman punches a
number into his mobile phone. A mum comforts her child in the
child safety seat alongside her. A parent returning from his skiing
holidays gets tired during a long drive home. And then the unthinkable
happens. A boy on his skateboard, an elk emerging out of the woods, a
careless overtake in the oncoming lane. An accident.
In a gigantic wooded and marshy area outside of the town of Borås in
Sweden, accidents of this kind will be prevented with the aid of sophisticated
new engineering before long. In a couple of years’ time, the site will
house the world’s first, largest and most modern installation for active
traffic safety – neighbouring Volvo’s own test track, but independent of
commercial interests.
SWEDEN TOPS THE TRAFFIC SAFETY CHARTS
Here, COWI is designing an ultra-modern safety laboratory for AstaZero
headed up by Chalmers University of Technology, the Swedish National
Testing and Research Institute. With a full-blown urban environment, a
varied country road that meanders through the landscape and a section
of motorway all fitted onto the 400 hectare area, little Hällered is set to
become an El Dorado for traffic safety researchers, vehicle manufacturers
and subsuppliers from the whole world – an open platform for research,
innovation, development and testing of active safety.
The installation, at which several separate environments can be used
simultaneously, having been partitioned off for secrecy, offers completely
realistic conditions for developing and testing new systems. The prospective
customers are already sitting on user councils now, writing out their
wish lists.
“The installation will give
Sweden a top world ranking
in the vehicle industry”
PETHER WALLIN, PRESIDENT OF ASTAZERO
“The installation will give Sweden a top world ranking in terms of
research and development in the vehicle industry,” says Pether Wallin,
President of AstaZero, as the venture has come to be called – Asta stands
for Active Safety Test Area, Zero for the vision of zero traffic accident
victims that is now common in large parts of the world.
“Here researchers and manufacturers will be able to form clusters in
order to evolve new technology that prevents collisions – not, as formerly,
by protecting those involved once the accident is already a fact,” he says.
A ROBOT BEHIND THE WHEEL
The technology per se is nothing new. Pether Wallin himself has already
test-driven – from the back seat – a robot-controlled experimental car
that automatically adapts to conditions on the test track.
“You could certainly say it was a delightful experience tinged with
terror. But quite a titillating one,” he notes.
The trend towards active safety these days is just as self-evident as it
is necessary. Cars are becoming increasingly small and light. A car has to
be economical, both in terms of fuel consumption and emissions, as well
as not depleting the environment and resources too much in the making.
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Seen in that light, even heavy chassis with large
safety cages containing crash bags and deformation
or crush zones become dinosaur-like, Pether
Wallin thinks. Such nifty new zero-emission mini
cars call for an entirely different, novel and active
safety philosophy – particularly as they will be
sharing the roads with heavy lorries and buses.
MANY CHALLENGES TO BE MET
Innovative thinking is also required by COWI’s
large task force of environmental specialists, infrastructure
engineers, architects and construction
specialists. The work for AstaZero is a challenge,
especially given the tight schedule. Vehicle makers
are already queuing up to be allowed to use the
installation the minute it opens its gates in the
summer of 2014.
The cost ceiling is just as rigid: there is one
pot of money here and not a penny more. Added
to that are all the laws and regulations that this
sort of installation has to comply with in terms of
procurement, safety and environment.
“The commission requires plenty of creativity
and flexibility, and we are listening, reflecting and
thinking along new lines,” says Lars-Erik Dremar,
COWI’s Project Manager.
He regards it as a multi-faceted and fun commission.
Just take the artificial weather:
“It must be possible to order mist and fog,
water-sprinkled stretches of road, as in the case of
rain, or a coating of ice on the track. In addition,
light conditions have to be alterable so that tests
can be conducted at different lux counts,” he says.
BUILDING A ‘LEGO TOWN’
Sissel Anderssen is an architect with COWI and
responsible for planning the urban environment –
a different sort of task, and one that is more about
imitating authentic materials and creating credible
backdrops than building a town.
“You might say it is like a wild west town. We
will be working with various types of facade claddings,
concrete, wood and glass. The cars’ sensors
need to perceive them as the real thing and it must
be possible, for instance, to determine what sort
of effects reflections in glass surfaces create for the
systems and the drivers,” she says.
What is more, the town, like everything else
on AstaZero’s site, must be ‘crash-safe’ – that is to
say, the sets have to withstand a crash without any
personal injury occurring. Sissel Anderssen creates
lightweight structures that crumple up correctly
and are easy to repair and put back into position –
like a ‘Lego town’, pure and simple.
CAR INDUSTRY QUEUING UP
If we take a leap into the future to 2014, with the
finished installation in operation out there in ▶