Abstract: In recent years, more than 70% of the real traffic accidents in China are related to vulnerable road users, and the requirements for cars to protect them are becoming more and more prominent. Based on an A-class car, a vulnerable road user protection airbag (pedestrian airbag for short thereafter), which can protect their head and can be coordinated with pop-up bonnet, is designed and verified in this paper. First, the shape and layout of pedestrian airbag are designed and some operation conditions of pedestrian airbag including the collision of headform impactor against and linked deployment with pop-up bonnet are simulated. Then, by means of test and theoretical derivations, simulation results are validated and key parameters of pedestrian airbag and pop-up bonnet are revised. Finally, a C-NCAP headform collision test is conducted to investigate the protection effects of pedestrian airbag with pop-up bonnet. The results show that the pedestrian airbag developed has good protective effect of pedestrian head and can reduce injury by over 60% and get a high scoring rate up to 93.1%

Key words: pedestrian protection airbag, pop-up bonnet, headform impact test, vulnerable road user, HIC₁₅