Vehicle occupant protection apparatus

• US 20030227199A1
• Filed: 05/14/2003
• Published: 12/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Yoshizawa, Ryozo, Nakanishi, Isamu
• Granted Patent: US 6,830,278 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 297/216.12
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/4228 due to impact coming from the rear
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/4279 electric or electronic triggering
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/829 characterised by their adjusting mechanisms, e.g. electric motors
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/865 providing a fore-and-aft movement with respect to the occupant's head
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/888 with arrangements for protecting against abnormal g-forces, e.g. by displacement of the head-rest
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2021/0011 Rear collision or recoiling bounce after frontal collision
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2021/0048 Head
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 21/013 including means for detecting collisions, impending collisions or roll-over
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 21/0134 responsive to imminent contact with an obstacle , e.g. using radar systems
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 21/01562 by speed

Abstract

A vehicle occupant protection apparatus includes a headrest control unit for drive-controlling a headrest actuating mechanism. This control unit itself predicts that a vehicle behind is about to impact its own vehicle, and controls the headrest actuating mechanism to move a seat headrest forward and thereby reduce the size of the gap between the headrest and the neck of the occupant of the seat.

Claims

1. A vehicle occupant protection apparatus, comprising:

a headrest mounted movably front/rearward to the top of a seat of a vehicle;

a headrest actuating mechanism for advancing the headrest; and

a headrest control unit for drive-controlling the headrest actuating mechanism,

wherein the headrest control unit includes impact predicting means for predicting the impact into the vehicle from behind of an impacting body and drive-controls the headrest actuating mechanism on the basis of a prediction signal from this impact predicting means.

2. A protection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the impact predicting means includes relative speed detecting means for detecting the relative speed of the impacting body with respect to the vehicle, and the headrest control unit controls the headrest actuating mechanism to increase the advance of the headrest in correspondence with a detection signal from the relative speed detecting means.

3. A protection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the seat has a seat back deformation detector for detecting deformation of a seat back deforming in correspondence with the size of a rearward external force acting on the seat back, and the headrest control unit controls the headrest actuating mechanism to increase the advance of the headrest in correspondence with a detection signal from the seat back deformation detector.

4. A protection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the headrest actuating mechanism has an actual headrest advance detector for detecting an actual headrest advance and the headrest control unit controls the headrest actuating mechanism to reduce the speed of advance of the headrest as the actual advance detected by the actual headrest advance detector increases.