Method and apparatus for detecting a pedestrian impact
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method of detecting an impact of a vehicle with a pedestrian, comprising the steps of:
- sensing deflections of a vehicle body panel at distributed locations of said body panel;
collecting and storing the sensed deflections during impacts between said body panel and diversely shaped test objects to form a body of baseline calibration data;
detecting an impact between said body panel and an unknown object when the deflection sensed at one or more of said distributed locations exceeds a threshold;
correlating the sensed deflections due to the detected impact with the body of baseline calibration data to determine a shape of said unknown object; and
determining if said unknown object is a pedestrian based in part on the determined shape.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The collision of a vehicle with a pedestrian is detected based on the response of bend sensor segments affixed to a vehicle body panel such as a bumper fascia. The sensor data is processed to identify the location of an object impacting the body panel, and is correlated with calibration data to determine the shape and mass of the object. Impacts with pedestrians are discriminated from impacts with other objects based on the determined shape and mass.
-
Citations
16 Claims
-
1. A method of detecting an impact of a vehicle with a pedestrian, comprising the steps of:
-
sensing deflections of a vehicle body panel at distributed locations of said body panel;
collecting and storing the sensed deflections during impacts between said body panel and diversely shaped test objects to form a body of baseline calibration data;
detecting an impact between said body panel and an unknown object when the deflection sensed at one or more of said distributed locations exceeds a threshold;
correlating the sensed deflections due to the detected impact with the body of baseline calibration data to determine a shape of said unknown object; and
determining if said unknown object is a pedestrian based in part on the determined shape. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
-
-
12. Apparatus for detecting an impact of a vehicle with a pedestrian, comprising:
-
a set of sensor segments affixed to distributed locations of a vehicle body panel to measure deflection of said body panel at said distributed locations;
a memory unit for storing a body of baseline calibration data obtained from signals produced by the sensor segments during impacts between said body panel and diversely shaped test objects; and
processing means for sampling signals produced by said sensor segments when an object is impacted by said body panel, correlating the sampled signals with the body of baseline calibration data to determine a shape of the object impacted by said body panel, and determining if the object impacted by said body panel is a pedestrian based in part on the determined shape. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
-
Specification