The automotive industry has advanced vehicle tech, adding monitoring systems that prevent breakdowns by activating “limp home” mode or stopping the car to ensure safety.

Emergency Vehicle Safety: Overriding Protection for Survival

If a military or emergency vehicle is damaged by enemy fire or harsh conditions, its safety sensors trigger emergency mode to protect the engine and systems.

However, this can be dangerous for passengers who must escape immediately. Instead of automatically activating “limp home” mode, they need the vehicle to keep moving at all costs, even if it later breaks down.

A switch that overrides vehicle safety systems can be lifesaving in these situations. A leading off-road vehicle manufacturer tasked Akkodis with developing this feature for military and emergency services. The challenge? Ensuring technical feasibility, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

If a military or emergency vehicle is damaged by enemy fire or harsh conditions, its safety sensors trigger emergency mode to protect the engine and systems. However, this can be dangerous for passengers who must escape immediately.

“It was a paradox,” says Daniel Karner, automotive systems engineer at Akkodis Austria. “These advanced vehicle safety features exist to protect and stabilize the vehicle. We were asked to bypass them—for the right reasons.”

Reverting a modern vehicle’s control system to a manual override posed significant technical challenges. With interconnected safety systems, a hazard switch required an entirely new wiring framework—or an innovative workaround.

This solution highlights Akkodis’ expertise in advanced automotive engineering, blending software and electronics innovation to develop real-world emergency solutions.

Advanced Vehicle Override: How Akkodis Engineers Developed a Smart Control Bypass Instead, Akkodis engineers devised a technically advanced yet feasible solution to override vehicle safety systems. They developed a custom electronic control box that tricks the vehicle’s system into believing everything is functioning normally—even when critical sensors detect potential failures.

This innovation is particularly valuable for military, army, and search and rescue vehicles, where a full shutdown could put lives at risk.

It intercepts sensor data, blocking readings that would typically trigger safety shutdowns. Instead, it feeds the control system artificially stable values, ensuring the vehicle keeps moving despite rising oil temperature, turbocharger pressure, or fuel level drops.

Using a high-precision relay, originally designed for medical devices, Akkodis engineers enabled the system to bypass automated shutdowns while maintaining essential control.

While the vehicle will eventually halt if fuel runs out, this intelligent safety override ensures that it keeps running far beyond standard limits, helping emergency response teams escape danger before breakdown occurs.

Innovative Engineering: How Akkodis Experts Developed a Game-Changing Emergency Override System The project required close collaboration between Akkodis automotive engineers across Linz, Austria, and Fellbach, Germany, bringing together specialized expertise in vehicle safety systems and control technology.

Working directly with the manufacturer, the team defined the key features of the emergency override box. It was designed to not only bypass vehicle safety mechanisms but also enable engine start without pressing the brake pedal, essential for drivers with leg injuries, and allow speed control via the gear lever.

Once the technical specifications were set, Akkodis engineers began prototype development, utilizing off-the-shelf automotive components.

“We took a vehicle and just cut through the cables and put all the electronics in the trunk. It was a complete mess of cables and boxes, but everything worked as required,” says Daniel Karner, Automotive Systems Engineer at Akkodis Austria.

Following successful initial tests, the team moved to the next challenge: miniaturizing the components. The goal was to shrink the high-tech safety override system into a compact 10x15 cm unit, making installation seamless while maintaining full functionality.

Cutting-Edge Engineering: Developing and Testing a High-Tech Emergency Override System The Akkodis engineering team meticulously crafted custom automotive software, ensuring full compliance with customer requirements while expertly integrating relays and circuit boards into a highly compact design. The result? A six-layer circuit board capable of handling 50 inputs and 50 outputs, optimizing vehicle control and emergency response systems.

The testing phase began with virtual simulations using a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test bench, followed by real-world durability tests in extreme environments, from the North African desert to Arctic conditions. Simultaneously, the team refined the system for series production, ensuring scalability and reliability.

“This box is so special and purpose-built, that we needed a huge amount of very specific automotive engineering knowledge, together with the ability to combine competences from different people, to pull the project off,” Karner says.

“So, now our customer can present this new and unique feature to its military and search and rescue customers. You flip the sealed switch inside the cabin of your vehicle, and it will carry you out of danger, no matter what.”

End-to-End Engineering Excellence: From Concept to Series Production

A truly innovative engineering partner transforms a concept into reality, guiding projects through prototype development, validation, and verification, all the way to series production. The hazard switch project exemplifies Akkodis’s expertise in delivering full-cycle product development, from an initial sketch on a napkin to a market-ready solution. “We feel at home in complex projects that require specialist skills in electronics and software. We’re especially excited by projects that are a bit out of the ordinary and that require us to collaborate across different Akkodis competence areas”, says Friedrich Nachtmann, managing director, Akkodis Austria.

“In fact, we believe this kind of full-service engineering is where we deliver the most value to our customers.”

The automotive sector is a key focus for Akkodis Austria, with numerous cutting-edge development projects executed in collaboration with teams across Graz, Linz, Vienna, and Germany. However, their expertise in electronics and software extends beyond automotive engineering, supporting industries with fast innovation cycles, such as consumer electronics. “Typically, this concept to series production approach is favored by industries focusing on innovation and fast development cycles, for instance consumer electronics,” Nachtmann says. Our specialty is combining electronics and software, and often tasks a bit more complicated than a run-of-the-mill project. That’s where we feel comfortable.”

Ready to learn more about how Akkodis can help you innovate and enhance your vehicle safety systems? Contact us today to discuss your project needs and discover how our expertise can drive your success. Visit our website to explore our services and read more insightful articles.