Vehicle safety system and method implementing weighted active-passive crash mode classification

A vehicle safety system for helping to protect a vehicle occupant in the event of a frontal collision, comprising:

• one or more passive sensors for sensing a vehicle crash and providing crash signals in response to sensing the vehicle crash;
• one or more active sensors configured to sense an object in the path of the vehicle and to provide active safety signals in response to sensing the object in the path of the vehicle;
• a vehicle occupant protection device;
• and
• a controller operatively connected to the one or more passive sensors and to the one or more active sensors, wherein the controller is configured to:
• determine a passive safety crash mode classification in response to the crash signals received from the one or more passive sensors in response to an occurrence of a crash event;
• determine an active safety crash mode classification in response to the active safety signals received from the one or more active safety sensors prior to the occurrence of the crash event;
• determine an active safety confidence factor for the active safety crash mode classification;
• determine a weighted crash mode classification as being the active crash mode classification in response to the active safety confidence factor exceeding a predetermined threshold confidence value;
• determine the weighted crash mode classification as being the passive crash mode classification in response to the active safety confidence factor not exceeding the predetermined threshold confidence value;
• determine the occurrence of a frontal collision in response to the crash signals;
• and
• actuate the vehicle occupant protection device according to the weighted crash mode classification.