Tech, standards upgrade for test dummies

China is advancing key technologies and upgrading standards for automotive crash test dummies, a move that experts say will not only raise the overall safety level of the nation's rapidly growing auto industry, but also help enhance diversity in global dummy technologies.

According to Liu Zhixin, senior chief expert at the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC), the rapid development of China's auto sector and rising safety requirements have made it urgent to break foreign monopolies and develop dummies tailored to the physical characteristics of the Chinese population.

"Chinese people have significantly lower rib bone density than people in the West and are, therefore, more vulnerable in the same crash scenario. This difference shows that safety designs based solely on Western body types cannot truly protect Chinese occupants," Liu said.

He noted that developing homegrown dummies aligned with Chinese anthropometric features is not only vital for improving vehicle safety design, but also crucial for advancing China's high-end equipment manufacturing and driving innovation in safety standards.

"On the one hand, they serve as the fundamental benchmark for automotive safety design. On the other, they also help spur the development of safety testing equipment," Liu said.

CATARC recently announced that it would build China's first anthropometric database, and developed multiple dummy models, filling a long-standing gap in global safety systems where Asian body data have been underrepresented.

The new dummies span different body types and genders, and upgraded versions capable of more precisely simulating human injury metrics are expected next year. According to CATARC, a single dummy can withstand hundreds of crash tests so long as airbags deploy properly.

As precision instruments combining advanced medicine, mechanics and materials science, crash test dummies can reveal whether an impact would fracture ribs, rupture the liver or cause a concussion.

In this regard, their development is notoriously challenging: bionic design, component manufacturing and system-level verification are all extremely complex. Combined, these factors drive up costs, with the highest price of a single dummy exceeding 10 million yuan ($1.4 million).

Liu added that as the modern automotive industry originated in the West, the dummy sector has long been dominated by European and US companies, whose products are based on Western body types.

According to a report by marketplace intelligence provider Global Market Insights, the world's top seven automotive crash test dummy manufacturers in 2024 were Humanetics (US), TASS International (Netherlands), JASTI(Japan), 4activeSystems (Austria), Cellbond (UK), Dynamic Research (US) and China's GESAC. Together, they hold around 69 percent of the global market share.

"China attaches great importance to the formulation and implementation of road traffic safety laws and standards. But because its auto industry started late, early safety standards largely referenced foreign frameworks, leaving its system relatively behind," said Song Jiafeng, director of the safety technology department at the Suzhou Automotive Research Institute, Tsinghua University.

"The absence of standards for crash dummies based on Chinese body features has become a major bottleneck for advancing automotive safety technologies in China," Song noted.

To accelerate this effort, companies must master core technologies, and authorities should introduce national standards for dummies with Chinese characteristics, in order to ensure that the models meet international benchmarks in structure, materials and dynamics, he added.

To further advance worldwide collaboration on the topic, a global joint research working group on automotive crash test dummies was officially launched during this year's NCAP (new car assessment program) world progress, in Shanghai last month. It brought together domestic and international institutions, as well as vehicle and component manufacturers, to jointly advance technical research and coordinate global efforts in automotive safety.

"We aim to share China's progress in anthropometric data, bionic structural design and test verification with global partners, helping the working group build standards that better represent different regional populations," Liu of CATARC said at the conference.

"At the same time, deeper participation will help align China's vehicle safety assessment system more closely with international NCAP frameworks," he added.