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US 4,359,715 AGranted
Coded failure indicator for an air bag system
AssigneeFord Motor Company
InventorsPeter Langer, Carlos Dominguez
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A diagnostic means is connected to various electrical locations in an air bag system to detect and process faults. When a fault is detected, it is assigned a unique code sequence consisting of equally spaced pulses of equal length. The number of pulses determines the fault which is indicated by a single light inside the car.
Claims6
An air bag system for an automobile comprising:
- deceleration sensor means for sensing deceleration of the automobile;
- air bag means for providing occupant restraint;
- air bag firing means coupled to said air bag means for deploying said air bag means;
- diagnostic means coupled to said deceleration sensor means and said air bag firing means for actuating said air bag firing means in response to signals from said deceleration sensor means;
- said diagnostic means being coupled to a plurality of different electrical locations in said air bag system to monitor voltage levels at those electrical locations thereby detecting the occurrence of faults at those electrical locations;
- indicating means coupled to said diagnostic means for giving a unique coded indication of any of a plurality of faults;
- and wherein
- said diagnostic means associates a unique sequence of equally spaced pulses of an equal duration with a given fault so that a single indicating means can display a plurality of faults by displaying sequences of different length, each sequence including equally spaced pulses of equal duration.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.