Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Hiromichi Fujishima

Takao Akatsuka

Motomi Iyoda

Koichi Fujita

Koichi Sugiyama

Tomokazu Sakaguchi

Hiroyuki Takahashi

Makoto Hamada

Tomoharu Maeda

Kazuya Sasaki

Jiro Tsuchiya

Masahide Sawada

Masaaki Naito

An activation control apparatus of an occupant safety system has a floor sensor disposed at a predetermined position in a vehicle and arranged to detect impact on the vehicle and an activation control of the occupant safety system for activating the occupant safety system when an operation value obtained based on a detection value detected by the floor sensor exceeds a predetermined threshold, and the activation control apparatus further has satellite sensors A, B disposed more to the front than the floor sensor in the vehicle and arranged to detect a level of the impact on the vehicle to detect values of at least two different magnitudes according to the level of the detected impact, and a threshold changer for changing the predetermined threshold in accordance with a detection value of the satellite sensors A, B.

Activation control apparatus of occupant safety system

A structure and method for enabling a passive vehicle occupant restraint to be activated at the earliest possible timing, irrespective of a type of a collision. A floor sensor measures a deceleration G applied to the length of a vehicle and outputs the deceleration as the measurement G. An arithmetic unit carries out a predetermined arithmetic operation on the measurement G output from the floor sensor, so as to determine a function f(G). A conditional activation unit has a variation pattern of a threshold value T that varies with a variation in velocity v of a non-stationary object. The conditional activation unit reads a threshold value T corresponding to an input velocity v from the variation pattern and compares the threshold value T with the value of the function f(G). In case that the value of the function f(G) exceeds the threshold value T, an activation signal A is input to a driving circuit. A satellite sensor outputs an ON signal when a deceleration of not less than a predetermined reference value is applied to the vehicle. A threshold variation pattern selection unit changes the variation pattern of the threshold value T against the velocity v used in the conditional activation unit to another variation pattern, in response to the ON signal output from the satellite sensor.

Activation control apparatus for passive vehicle occupant restraint and method of controlling activation of passive vehicle occupant restraint

An activating apparatus of passive safety device having squibs, each for activating a passive safety device for protecting a passenger, current controllers for controlling an electric current supplied from an on-vehicle power supply to the squibs in the event of a crash and for controlling an electric current supplied from an off-vehicle power supply that is connected at the time of disposal of the passive safety devices, to the squibs, and a driver for outputting a driving signal to the current controllers to supply the electric current from the on-vehicle power supply or the off-vehicle power supply to the squibs, thereby activating the passive safety devices. The driver disables outputting of the driving signal based on the crash to the current controllers at the time of disposal of the passive safety devices.

Apparatus for activating passive safety device

An ignition control method in a passive safety device for a vehicle is provided which can achieve a sufficiently long back-up time achieved by a back-up condenser for power supply. The ignition control method includes a mode-shifting step of shifting the operation mode of an ignition control device from a normal mode to a low-power-consumption mode.

Ignition control method in passive safety device for vehicle

A floor sensor,measures a deceleration G applied to the length of a vehicle and outputs the deceleration as the measurement G. An arithmetic unit,carries out a predetermined arithmetic operation on the measurement G output from the floor sensor,, so as to determine a function f(G). A conditional activation unit,has a variation pattern of a threshold value T that varies with a variation in velocity v of a non-stationary object. The conditional activation unit,reads a threshold value T corresponding to an input velocity v from the variation pattern and compares the threshold value T with the value of the function f(G). In case that the value of the function f(G) exceeds the threshold value T, an activation signal A is input to a driving circuit,. A satellite sensor 30 outputs an ON signal when a deceleration of not less than a predetermined reference value is applied to the vehicle. A threshold variation pattern changing unit,changes the variation pattern of the threshold value T against the velocity v used in the conditional activation unit,to another variation pattern, in response to the ON signal output from the satellite sensor,. This structure of the present invention enables a passive vehicle occupant restraint to be activated at the earliest possible timing, irrespective of a type of a collision, in which the vehicle crashes.

An air bag apparatus for a passenger seat includes: a first sensor for detecting an occupant seated in a passenger seat; a second sensor for detecting a state in which the occupant is approaching an instrument panel excluding a state in which the occupant put out his or her hand(s) on the instrument panel; and a deployment controller for changing the control of deployment of an air bag when the occupant is detected by the first sensor and the state in which the occupant is approaching the instrument panel is detected by the second sensor.

Air bag apparatus for passenger seat

A passive safety device starting apparatus includes: a sampling unit for sampling a plurality of acceleration values from an automotive vehicle according to periodic interrupt signals; an integration unit for calculating the sum of a plurality of acceleration values sampled within each of a plurality of first time intervals, for storing a number of the sums, each of which is calculated within a second time interval greater than one of the first time intervals, in a corresponding number of data areas of a memory, and for generating a value of an integral based on the number of the sums within each first time interval; and a starting unit for updating the integral value according to the periodic interrupt signals by adding a new acceleration value to the integral value generated by the integration unit after the new acceleration value is sampled by the sampling unit, and for starting a passive safety device when the updated integral value is detected to be greater than a threshold value.

Apparatus for starting passive safety device of automotive vehicle

An air bag system able to inflate an air bag at an appropriate time, corresponding to different collision modes, with a simplified construction. The system is provided with a longitudinal acceleration sensor and an acceleration level computing means which computes the degree of acceleration. A computing device computes the rate of change of the acceleration and detects a characteristic of the rate of change, and sends the resultant data to a first judging device. The first judging device detects the presence of a collision based on the degree of the acceleration and the characteristic of the rate of change of the acceleration. A second judging device is provided in order to detect the presence of a collision based on the acceleration. An air bag driving signal is output based on the judgments made by the first and the second judging device.

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Toyota, Japan

Hiromichi Fujishima