Apparatus and method for controlling an occupant protection system in response to determined passenger compartment occupancy information

An apparatus for controlling an actuatable occupant protection system in a passenger compartment of a vehicle, the apparatus comprising:

• a camera configured for obtaining an image of a viewable field within the passenger compartment of the vehicle;
• at least one pattern located on vehicle structures located within the viewable field, the at least one pattern being formed from a dye that is adapted to fluoresce at a near-infrared wavelength of light, the camera being a near-infrared camera that is adapted to obtain an image at the fluorescing near-infrared wavelength;
• means for detecting the pattern in the obtained image;
• means for removing portions of the obtained image associated with vehicle structures having the pattern so as to obtain information regarding occupancy within the viewable field;
• means responsive to the obtained occupancy information for controlling the actuatable occupant protection system;
• and
• an optical filter associated with the camera, the optical filter allowing passage of a predefined range of near-infrared wavelengths of light and preventing passage of wavelengths of light outside of the predefined range.

A method of controlling an actuatable occupant protection system in a passenger compartment of a vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

• obtaining an image of a viewable field within the passenger compartment of the vehicle;
• locating at least one pattern on vehicle structures located within the viewable field;
• detecting the pattern in the obtained image;
• removing portions of the obtained image associated with vehicle structures having the pattern so as to obtain information regarding occupancy of within the viewable field;
• and
• controlling the actuatable occupant protection system in response to the obtained occupancy information;
• the step of detecting the pattern in the obtained image further includes the step of forming a binary image from the obtained image by comparing pixel values of the obtained image with a threshold value and providing a binary zero when a respective pixel value fails to exceed the threshold value.