VDO UDS (Incident Data Recorder) Automatic Recording of Collisions and Critical Driving Situations

Birmingham, UK, March 3rd 2014. The highly sensitive internal sensors in the UDS, record longitudinal and lateral acceleration as well as change in direction. Moreover, the UDS stores the speed of the vehicle and has status inputs for recording when and how long the brakes, indicators and lights were operating and for emergency vehicles, how long the blue lights and siren were actuated.

The intelligent memory management decides whether and how long an event is to be kept in one of the 12 main memory areas - the more severe the event, the longer it is kept in memory. Data is stored in each case for a period of approx 45 seconds - 30 seconds before and 15 seconds following the event.

Graduated, user oriented software programs are available for evaluation of the event data including UDShow and UDScience software programs. ‘Collisions can be examined in a new, qualitative way’, commented Peter Needham, VDO Tachograph Project Manager. ‘For example, the recording of both the speed and movements of the vehicle as well as the operation of the brakes, indicators and lights for a short period immediately before, during and after an incident, enables the causes of an accident to be established objectively’. Furthermore the measured data can be used for further investigations such as vehicle design and construction. The use of collision data recorders in fleets has shown that they have a considerable accident preventive effect, for example large long-term studies having shown a 20 to 30% reduction in collisions.

The UDS product compliments the new VDO Forensic training courses that provide delegates with the necessary technical knowledge and evaluation skills to examine data, primarily for road traffic collision investigation.