Seat belt tightening system incorporated with a vehicle seat

Abstract

A seat belt tightening system incorporated with a vehicle seat, comprising: a deceleration sensor for detecting deceleration indicative of occurence of a vehicle crash; a tensioning unit for tensioning a seat belt; a power unit for activating the tensioning unit upon receiving an output signal from the deceleration sensor; a safety catch member for preventing activation of the power unit; and mounted state detecting unit for detecting a mounted state of the vehicle seat and releasing the safety catch member only when it has detected the mounted state of the vehicle seat. Thus, the seat belt tightening system may be safely incorporated with the vehicle seat as a subassembly for improved efficiency of the assembling process, and the inadvertent activation of the system is positively prevented. In particular, when an explosive element is used as a part of the seat belt tightening system, it can be place conveniently inside the seat cushion of the vehicle seat without unduly complicating the assembly process for the seat belt tightening system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.