Force sensing seat belt sensor assembly

A seat belt sensor system in a vehicle, comprising:

• a seat belt webbing inside the vehicle;
• an occupant monitoring system, wherein the occupant monitoring system comprises a camera in the vehicle with a field of view incorporating portions of the seat belt webbing;
• a plurality of force sensors coupled to the seat belt webbing and defining discrete activation zones corresponding to respective electrodes on the seat belt webbing, wherein the force sensors capture a force level applied onto both sides of the seat belt webbing to respective discrete activation zones and wherein the respective electrodes transmit the force levels as capacitive measurements to an electronic control unit,
• wherein the electronic control unit comprises a processor communicatively coupled with a memory, the memory storing computer-readable instructions and a map of the discrete activation zones on the seat belt webbing, wherein the processor executes the computer-readable instructions stored on the memory, the computer-readable instructions causing the processor to:
• receive a series of images from the camera;
• analyze the series of images to determine a force sensor condition;
• selectively activate/deactivate the discrete activation zones based on the force sensor condition;
• receive the capacitive measurements from selectively activated zones;
• calculate capacitive response tracking data according to the map of the discrete activation zones;
• identify user commands from the capacitive response tracking data;
• and
• control a vehicle system with the user commands.

A seat belt sensor assembly comprising:

• a seat belt webbing;
• a human machine interface on the seat belt webbing comprising a plurality of force sensors coupled to the seat belt webbing, wherein the force sensors capture force levels applied to a surface and a different side of the force sensors and transmit the force levels as capacitive measurements to an electronic control unit,
• wherein the electronic control unit comprises a processor communicatively coupled with a memory, the memory storing computer-readable instructions that implement software with the processor;
• and
• a map of force sensor locations on the seat belt webbing stored in the memory,
• wherein the processor of the electronic control unit executes the software to:
• receive the capacitive measurements from the force sensors;
• calculate capacitive response tracking data according to the map of force sensor locations;
• identify user commands from the capacitive response tracking data;
• and
• control a vehicle system with the user commands.