Volvo’s New Smart Seatbelt Recognizes The Individual And Adjusts Its Protection To Suit Them

In 1959, Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seatbelt and made its design freely available to car manufacturers worldwide. This straightforward yet revolutionary invention has since been credited with saving over a million lives. Today, Volvo is once again innovating in safety, bringing a high-tech evolution to the classic seatbelt.

The new seatbelt design is based on Volvo’s extensive database of over 80,000 car crash cases. Inside the vehicle, sensors gather data about passengers and combine it with input from various internal, external, and crash sensors. In a collision, the seatbelt automatically adapts to both the specific passenger and the details of the crash.

Seatbelt Adjusts Protection Based on Passenger Size and Crash Severity

Volvo stated that the new multi-adaptive safety belt uses data from both interior and exterior sensors to tailor protection based on the scenario and individual passenger profiles, including factors like height, weight, body shape, and seating position. For instance, a larger person involved in a severe crash would receive a higher belt load to help minimize head injury risk, while a smaller person in a less serious crash would get a lower load to reduce the chance of rib fractures.

Modern seatbelts use a feature called a load limiter to regulate how much force they apply during a crash. This helps prevent passengers from hitting parts of the car while also reducing pressure after the peak impact to avoid injuries like broken ribs.

Volvo’s new design expands the load-limiting settings from three to 11, allowing for more precise adjustments tailored to both the situation and the individual. Plus, its performance is expected to improve over time through over-the-air software updates.

The new safety belt will launch in Volvo’s fully electric EX30 in 2026, joining the brand’s expanding lineup of EVs, which already includes the EX30 and its FH long-haul heavy trucks.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

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