Safety system for a vehicle of a vehicle fleet

A system for validating a pre-trigger function for a safety system in vehicles of a fleet of vehicles, comprising:

• a central unit that includes a computer system, a first communication device, and storage device, the computer system communicating with and exchanging data with the vehicles of the vehicle fleet via the first communication device;
• wherein:
• the safety system of the individual vehicles of the vehicle fleet includes:
• a personal protection device;
• a contact sensor system for acquiring at least one impact-relevant physical quantity;
• an environmental sensor system for acquiring at least one crash-relevant physical quantity in an environment surrounding the vehicle;
• and
• an evaluation and control unit;
• the evaluation and control unit is configured to:
• evaluate the at least one impact-relevant physical quantity acquired by the contact sensor system;
• execute an adaptive pre-trigger function by which to:
• evaluate the at least one crash-relevant physical quantity acquired by the environmental sensor system;
• based on the evaluation of the at least one crash-relevant physical quantity acquired by the environmental sensor system, recognize that an unavoidable crash, which has not yet occurred, will occur;
• and
• based on the recognition that the unavoidable crash will occur and only when the adaptive pre-trigger function is validated to be accurate, output a trigger signal that triggers deployment of the personal protection device prior to occurrence of the unavoidable crash;
• and
• determine, for respective recognitions that the unavoidable crash will occur, whether a respective corresponding crash impact is recognized subsequent to the respective recognition that the unavoidable crash will occur, with a result of the determination impacting a respective rating of correspondence in the respective vehicle between the recognitions that the unavoidable crash will occur and the recognitions of crash impact, by which a determination is made of whether there is a threshold correspondence between the recognitions that the unavoidable crash will occur and the recognitions of crash impact;
• the adaptive pre-trigger function:
• is initially installed without being validated to be accurate, prior to the rating indicating that there is the threshold correspondence, so that one or more recognitions that the unavoidable crash will occur is made by the execution of the adaptive pre-trigger function without the trigger signal being output to trigger the deployment of the personal protection device;
• and
• is subsequently updated to be validated to be accurate in response to the rating being changed to indicate that there is the threshold correspondence;
• and
• the computer system:
• receives data including one or both of (a) the respective ratings and (b) respective sums of operating hours of the adaptive pre-trigger function in the respective vehicles of the vehicle fleet;
• stores the data in the storage device;
• evaluates the data to determine whether the threshold correspondence is met;
• and
• in response to determining that the threshold correspondence is met, transmits, to the vehicles of the vehicle fleet and via the first communication device, an update by which the adaptive pre-trigger function in the vehicles of the vehicle fleet is validated to be accurate, so that in response to a subsequent recognition that the unavoidable crash will occur, the adaptive pre-trigger function causes deployment of the personal protection device prior to any corresponding crash impact being determined.