Method and apparatus for sensing a vehicle crash

In a motor vehicle having a deployable occupant protection apparatus for protecting at least one occupant of said vehicle in a crash, a sensor for determining that said vehicle is experiencing a crash requiring deployment of said occupant protection apparatus comprising:

• (a) sensor means for sensing accelerations of said vehicle and producing an analog output signal representative thereof;
• (b) mounting means for mounting said sensor means onto said vehicle;
• (c) converting means for receiving said analog signal and for converting said analog signal into a digital signal;
• (d) a single neural computer coupled to said converting means for processing said digital signal, said single neural computer comprising pattern recognition means for determining if said digital signal contains a pattern characteristic of a vehicle crash requiring occupant protection, said neural computer producing a deployment signal when said pattern recognition means determines that said digital signal contains a pattern characteristic of a vehicle crash requiring occupant protection such that the deployment signal is produced solely by the utilization of said single neural computer;
• and
• (e) output means coupled to said neural computer responsive to said deployment signal for initiating deployment of said occupant protection apparatus.

A method of obtaining a single neural network for use with a microprocessor-based crash sensor to determine if a deployable occupant protection device in a vehicle should be deployed, comprising the steps of:

• (a) obtaining digital crash data representative of the vehicle for which the crash sensor is intended to be used, said crash data being obtained from deployment desired crashes, crashes in which deployment is not desired and other events, the combination of all such crashes and events constituting a crash library for said vehicle;
• (b) designing a candidate pattern recognition algorithm;
• (c) training said pattern recognition algorithm to categorize the events of said crash library into deployment-desired and deployment-not-desired categories using a pattern recognition computer program and said crash library until categorization errors are reduced to a minimum, resulting in a single trained neural network;
• (d) testing said trained pattern recognition algorithm using additional crashes and events representative of said vehicle;
• (e) redesigning said trained pattern recognition algorithm if testing performance is unsatisfactory, and repeating training and testing steps(c) and (d);
• and
• (f) outputting from the pattern recognition program the resulting single trained neural network.

A method for sensing a crash of a vehicle to determine if a deployable occupant protection device in the vehicle should be deployed, comprising the steps of:

• (a) obtaining an acceleration signal from an accelerometer mounted on the vehicle;
• (b) converting said acceleration signal into digital time series data;
• (c) entering said digital time series data into a first series of input nodes of a neural network;
• (d) performing a mathematical operation on said data from each of said first series of input nodes and inputting said operated-on data into a second series of nodes wherein the operation performed on said data from each of said first series of input nodes prior to inputting the operated-on data to the second series of nodes is different from the operation performed on the data from the others of said first series of input nodes;
• (e) combining the operated-on data from all of the input nodes in said first series of input nodes into each node in said second series of nodes to form a value at each node in said second series of nodes;
• (f) performing a mathematical operation on each of said values on said nodes in said second series of nodes and inputting said operated-on data into an output series of nodes wherein the operation performed on the value on each of said nodes in said second series of nodes prior to inputting the operated-on value to said output series of nodes is different from that operation performed on the values on others of said nodes in said second series of nodes;
• (g) combining the operated-on data from all of the nodes in said second series of nodes into each node of said output series of nodes to form a value at each node of said output series of nodes;
• and,
• (h) deploying the occupant protection device if the value on one node of said output series of nodes is within a range signifying that a crash requiring the deployment of the occupant protection device is underway.

In a motor vehicle having a deployable occupant protection apparatus for protecting at least two occupants of said vehicle in a crash, said vehicle having a driver's seat occupiable by a driver and a front passenger seat containing an object, a sensor system for initiating deployment of said occupant protection apparatus comprising:

• (a) first sensor means for sensing accelerations of said vehicle and producing an analog output signal representative thereof;
• (b) second sensor means for sensing the position of the driver relative to said deployable occupant protection apparatus;
• (c) identification means for identifying the object occupying said front passenger seat;
• (d) mounting means for mounting said first sensor means onto said vehicle;
• (e) converting means coupled to said first sensor means for receiving said analog signal and for converting said analog signal into a digital signal;
• (f) processing means coupled to said convening means, said second sensor means and said identification means and comprising pattern recognition means for determining if said digital signal contains a pattern characteristic of a vehicle crash requiring occupant protection, said processing means producing a deployment signal when (i) said pattern recognition means determines that said digital signal contains a pattern characteristic of a vehicle crash requiring occupant protection, (ii) said second sensor means indicates that the driver is at least a predetermined displacement from said deployable restraint, and (iii) said identification means determines that said passenger seat is occupied and that it is not occupied by a rear facing child seat;
• and,
• (g) deployment initiation means coupled to said processing means and responsive to said deployment signal to initiate deployment signal to initiate deployment of said occupant protection apparatus.

In a motor vehicle having a deployable occupant protection apparatus for protecting at least one occupant of the vehicle in a crash, a sensor for determining that the vehicle is experiencing a crash requiring deployment of the occupant protection apparatus comprising:

• (a) sensor means mounted on the vehicle for sensing accelerations of the vehicle and producing an analog output signal representative thereof;
• (b) converting means coupled to said sensor means for receiving said analog signal and for converting said analog signal into a digital signal;
• (c) a neural computer coupled to said converting means for processing said digital signal, said neural computer comprising pattern recognition means for determining that said digital signal contains a pattern characteristic of a vehicle crash requiring occupant protection and producing a deployment signal upon a determination by said pattern recognition means that said digital signal contains the pattern characteristic of a vehicle crash requiring occupant protection, said neural computer being coupled to the occupant protection apparatus and structured and arranged to diagnose the readiness of deployment of the occupant protection apparatus;
• and
• (d) output means coupled to said neural computer for responding to said deployment signal and initiating deployment of the occupant protection apparatus.