Collision sensing system

A method of activating a safety device for vehicular passenger protection in a passenger compartment of a vehicle having a forward direction of travel in which it is susceptible to collision incidents in a frontal direction mode and in one or more angular direction modes, said vehicle having at least right side and left side acceleration sensors forward of said compartment, an acceleration sensor in said passenger compartment and a computer for continually processing acceleration signals from said sensors during vehicle operation, said method being executed on said computer and comprising the steps of:

• continually comparing at least one of said acceleration signals with a predetermined acceleration value indicative of a passenger threatening collision and, if a said signal exceeds said value, proceeding with the following steps;
• integrating each of said acceleration signals over time to determine a current sequence of velocity values for each of said sensor locations;
• integrating each of said velocity values over time to determine current displacement values for each of said sensor locations;
• comparing said velocity values with predetermined threshold velocity values for said sensor locations as a basis for determining whether a frontal mode collision situation requires safety device actuation;
• comparing selected of said velocity and displacement values with predetermined corresponding velocity and displacement threshold values as a basis for determining whether an angular mode collision situation requires safety device activation and, if any one of said frontal or angular collision mode comparisons requires activation;
• and
• activating said device.