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US 6,647,331 B2Granted
Collision severity determining system
AssigneeToyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsKatsuji Imai, Yujiro Miyata, Motomi Iyoda
Life of this patent
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AssigneeToyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsKatsuji Imai, Yujiro Miyata, Motomi Iyoda
Estimating the term…
A collision severity determining system for determining severity of a collision of a vehicle includes a first deceleration detector disposed in a central portion of a vehicle for detecting a deceleration in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle, and a second deceleration detector disposed in a front portion of the vehicle for detecting a deceleration in the longitudinal direction. A controller calculates a velocity change amount of the vehicle by integrating the vehicle deceleration with respect to time, and determines severity of the collision by comparing the vehicle deceleration with a threshold value corresponding to the same velocity change amount. When a problem, such as a failure or breakdown of the second deceleration detector, occurs, the severity determining unit operates in a predetermined fail-safe mode for selecting an appropriate severity determination map stored in the controller, and makes a severity determination based on the selected severity determination map.
A collision severity determining system for determining severity of a collision of a vehicle, comprising:
An apparatus comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Responsive to vehicle motion parameters , e.g. to vehicle longitudinal or transversal deceleration or speed value: by integrating the amplitude of…
Including means for detecting collisions, impending collisions or roll-over: responsive to vehicle motion parameters , e.g. to vehicle…
Problems or faults: cut lines
Prevention of malfunction: fault detection or diagnostic circuits
Term ended 8 May 2022 (estimated)
The disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-143669 filed on May 14, 2002 including the specification, drawings and abstract is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a collision severity determining system that operates at the time of activation of an occupant protection device, and provides a result of severity determination which can be used for adjusting, for example, the power level of deployment of the occupant protection device, such as an airbag system, thus assuring more appropriate occupant protection.
The foregoing and/or further objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals are used to represent like elements and wherein:
FIG. 1 is a view showing a hardware configuration of a severity determining system according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention, used with an occupant protection device;
FIG. 2 is a view showing a motor vehicle in which the severity determining system shown in FIG. 1 is installed;
FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a hardware configuration of a collision severity determining system 20 according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention when it is used with an occupant protection device. In FIG. 1, an airbag device 50 is illustrated as a typical example of the occupant protection device. According to this embodiment of the invention, an airbag 52 stored in the airbag device 50 is adapted to deploy at a high power level or at a low power level according to a result of determination (i.e., the severity of a collision) obtained by the severity determining system 20.
In addition to the severity determining system 20 of the embodiment, there is provided an activation device (not shown) that determines whether the airbag device 50 should be activated. If the activation device determines the airbag device 50 should be activated, the airbag is activated to deploy at a high or low power level according to the collusion severity determined by the severity determining system 20 as described above.
FIG. 2 illustrates the severity determining system 20 when it is installed on a motor vehicle 10. FIG. 3 is a block diagram schematically illustrating a functional arrangement of the severity determining system 20.