Method and apparatus for measuring seat loading by strain gauge
DCFirst Claim
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1. In a vehicle seat having structural members including brackets supporting a seat cushion and a seat back and mounting feet supporting the brackets, apparatus for measuring occupant seated weight comprising:
- a plurality of strain gauges, each having a rigid substrate, bonded to at least some of the structural members in strategic locations to sense weight distributed in both front and rear seat regions; and
a processor coupled to the strain gauges for determining occupant seated weight.
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Abstract
An existing vehicle seat design is equipped with strain gauges welded to structural seat members to sense occupant seated weight. A microprocessor compensates for preload on the sensors and multiplies each signal by an empirically determined gain, and then combines the gauge outputs. The combined output is low pass filtered to avoid motion induced errors. The measured occupant seated weight is used by decision logic to decide whether to allow passenger airbag deployment.
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11 Claims
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1. In a vehicle seat having structural members including brackets supporting a seat cushion and a seat back and mounting feet supporting the brackets, apparatus for measuring occupant seated weight comprising:
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a plurality of strain gauges, each having a rigid substrate, bonded to at least some of the structural members in strategic locations to sense weight distributed in both front and rear seat regions; and a processor coupled to the strain gauges for determining occupant seated weight. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. In a vehicle seat having structural members including brackets supporting seat cushions and mounting feet supporting the brackets, a method of measuring the occupant seated weight comprising the steps of:
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welding strain gauges to structural members to measure strain in the members due to occupant seated weight; and processing gauge outputs to determine total occupant seated weight. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11)
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Specification