Vehicular occupant restraint system and method
First Claim
1. A vehicular occupant restraint system, comprising:
- an object detecting means that detects an object near a vehicle;
a collision predicting means that predicts a potential collision based on the object detection and reports the potential collision if a probability of occurrence of the potential collision is high;
a seating condition determining means that monitors and determines a seating condition of vehicle occupant;
a seating condition detecting control means that controls the determining means to operate only immediately after the potential collision is reported thereby determining the seating condition; and
an occupant restraint means that performs an occupant restraint control based on the collision prediction and the seating condition.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A vehicular occupant restraint system includes a distance sensor, an electromagnetic wave radiation-type occupant sensor, a controller, and an airbag drive circuit. When the controller predicts a collision and determines it is unavoidable based on the output of the distance sensor, the controller sends an instruction signal to the occupant sensor to determine the seating condition of an occupant. Then, the airbag drive circuit performs an airbag deployment control in accordance with the determined seating condition. This system thus reduces power consumption and electromagnetic wave radiation of the occupant sensor.
37 Citations
7 Claims
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1. A vehicular occupant restraint system, comprising:
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an object detecting means that detects an object near a vehicle;
a collision predicting means that predicts a potential collision based on the object detection and reports the potential collision if a probability of occurrence of the potential collision is high;
a seating condition determining means that monitors and determines a seating condition of vehicle occupant;
a seating condition detecting control means that controls the determining means to operate only immediately after the potential collision is reported thereby determining the seating condition; and
an occupant restraint means that performs an occupant restraint control based on the collision prediction and the seating condition. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A vehicular occupant restraint method comprising:
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detecting an object near a vehicle while the vehicle is in motion;
determining a probability of the vehicle colliding with the object based on an output of the detecting step;
outputting a collision prediction signal if the probability of the collision is higher than a predetermined value;
monitoring a seating condition of a vehicle occupant only after the collision prediction signal is outputted; and
performing an occupant restraint operation based on the seating condition. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7)
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Specification