US 6,373,146 B1Granted

Occupant protection apparatus

AssigneeKansei Corporation

InventorsTadashi Horikoshi, Yoichi Hashimoto, Yoshihiro Akiba

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Abstract

A position of a head of an occupant from an instrument panel, for example, of a vehicle is measured with a predetermined period of time and the position of the head after a predetermined time is estimated from the measured position, whereby an ignition signal is supplied to a detonator at a suitable timing determined by the estimated position thereby to inflate an air bag. The distance of the head of the occupant from the instrument panel is divided into an inflation suppression area, an inflation area without timing delay and an inflation area with timing delay. When it is determined that the head of the occupant locates in the inflation area with timing delay, the time point at which the head shifts to the inflation area without timing delay is estimated and the air bag is inflated on the basis of the estimated time point.

Claims10

Dependent claims

An occupant protection apparatus, comprising:

an acceleration sensor for detecting acceleration of a vehicle at a time of collision and outputting an acceleration signal representing a magnitude of the acceleration;
an inflator having two detonators for driving a main body of said protection apparatus:
a timing control circuit for measuring a distance between an instrument panel and a head of an occupant sitting on a seat slidable along a longitudinal direction of the vehicle and having a reclining function, the timing control circuit for calculating an estimated distance based on the distance measured and the acceleration, the timing control circuit for comparing the estimated distance with threshold values, the timing control circuit for controlling a timing for igniting the two detonators in accordance with a result of the comparison;
and
an ignition control circuit for igniting said detonators in accordance with the timing controlled when the acceleration signal is outputted from said acceleration sensor,
wherein said timing control circuit sets the threshold values to be compared with the distance between the head of the occupant and the instrument panel in correspondence with an inflation suppression area, an inflation area without timing delay and an inflation area with timing delay, respectively;
the ignition control circuit ignites one of the two detonators when the timing control circuit determines that the head of the occupant is in the inflation suppression area;
and
the ignition control circuit ignites both of the two detonators at the same time when the timing control circuit determines that the head of the occupant is in the inflation area without timing delay.

6 more elements

An occupant protection apparatus, comprising:

a first distance measuring means for measuring repeatedly with a first period of time a distance between the head of an occupant sitting on a seat and an instrument panel by using output signals of a plurality of sensors;
an integration means for integrating with a second period of time shorter than said first period of time an acceleration signal representing a magnitude of acceleration of a vehicle from an acceleration sensor which is one of said plurality of sensors, thereby to obtain an amount of deviation of a position of the head of the occupant;
a second distance measuring means for subtracting the amount of deviation obtained by said integration means from the distance measured by said first distance measuring means, thereby to measure a distance between the head of the occupant sitting on the seat and the instrument panel;
and
a driving control means for allowing an ignition signal for igniting and driving a detonator to be outputted when the distance measured by said second distance measuring means exceeds a threshold value.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.