US 12,594,863 B1Granted

System for mitigating the severity of motor vehicle crashes

AssigneeAutomotive Safety Research, Inc.

InventorsWilliam Broadhead, Ted Zinke

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Abstract

A system that reduces forces imparted to a vehicle occupant in a collision, including a seat and integrated seatbelt system, a slider mechanism along which the seat can be moved rapidly, a device to provide extremely rapid acceleration of the seat along the slider mechanism, and a mechanism to resist seat motion opposite to that of the impact force in an energy absorbing fashion. Prior to a crash, a precisely timed high rearward force is applied to the seat resulting in acceleration of the seat and occupant relative to the vehicle. Once the seat reaches its travel limit in the direction of crash forces, as a result of crash accelerations, it then reverses direction and an energy absorption mechanism mitigates the forces applied to the occupant. Accelerations that would otherwise be experienced by the vehicle occupant due to the collision are reduced.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A vehicle crash mitigation system, comprising:

a) a track or rail on which a vehicle seat can be displaced and accelerated relative to a vehicle;
b) a strategically timed variable force thruster system including a thruster configured to apply a precrash seat thrust to the vehicle seat so as to rapidly accelerate the vehicle seat and an occupant thereon along the track or rail in a direction of predicted crash forces just prior to and during a first stage of a predicted crash impact so as to reduce vehicle occupant accelerations later in the impact event;
c) a force limiting energy absorption system configured to absorb energy from movement of the vehicle seat along the track or rail opposite the direction of the predicted crash forces and initiated upon direction reversal of the seat;
and
d) a computer algorithm configured to calculate the timing of the precrash seat thrust actuation to between 20-100 ms before the predicted crash impact and a magnitude of precrash seat thrust and subsequent force limiting energy absorption during a crash event, and integrated to control actuation of the variable force thruster system and energy absorption system.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.