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It is generally accepted that the targets for fatality reduction in car accidents set by Governments in Europe, USA and Japan can only be met by using advanced technologies that will include a broad range of sensors to monitor the crash likelihood and severity, vehicle condition, occupant type and posture. Information provided by these sensors can be used to increase the effectiveness of restraint systems. On the basis of information on the vehicle and the occupant status during the crash event, restraint parameters such as belt force and airbag outflow could be controlled real-time in such a way that injury levels sustained by the occupants are minimized. Real-time control during the crash event enables restraint systems to adapt to real world conditions and offers improved performance in terms of injury reduction over a much broader range of impact scenarios.

Thoracic injuries are one of the main causes of fatalities and severe injuries in car crashes. The tools available today for studying these injuries are not up to par with the latest implementation of restraint systems and airbags. THORAX-FP7 is a collaborative medium scale project under the Seventh Framework. It focuses on the reduction and prevention of thoracic injuries through an improved understanding of the thoracic injury mechanisms and the implementation of this understanding in an updated design for the thorax-shoulder complex of the THOR dummy. The updated dummy should enable the design and evaluation of advanced restraint systems for a wide variety (gender, age and size) of car occupants.