Bosch Electronics Corporation

Airbag Systems Company Ltd

Joerg Heckel

Masami Okano

Yasumasa Kanameda

Koichi Miyaguchi

Sadao Ikeya

A control apparatus of an occupant protection device has at least one front acceleration sensor provided in a front part of a vehicle, in addition to a room acceleration sensor provided in a room of the vehicle. Whether the vehicle is in a collision requiring a drive of the occupant protection device is decided based on each of sensor outputs of the room and front acceleration sensors, respectively, and the occupant protection device is driven when the collision is detected based on at least one of the sensor outputs. Since the front acceleration sensor is provided in the front part of the vehicle, the front acceleration sensor detects a collision acceleration early and gives it to the control unit, even in case of a collision, such as the offset or an oblique collision, in which a collision acceleration transmitted to the room acceleration sensor may be weakened. Therefore, the control unit can exactly drive the occupant protection device without causing delay in collision detection.

Control apparatus of occupant protection device

A control apparatus of an occupant protection device has at least one front acceleration sensor provided in a front part of a vehicle in addition to a room acceleration sensor provided in a room of the vehicle. The front acceleration sensor detects an acceleration of the vehicle and gives the control unit a sensor output representative thereof. The control unit, when the sensor output of the front acceleration sensor is a sensor output caused by a collision of the vehicle, detects a variational quantity of the sensor output of the front acceleration sensor based on sensor outputs of the front acceleration sensor at two different time points, and increases an integrated value of an acceleration signal of the room acceleration sensor based on the variational quantity. Then, when the integrated value of the room acceleration sensor exceeds a threshold value, the occupant protection device is driven.

A control apparatus of an occupant protection device detects whether a vehicle is in a collision requiring to drive the occupant protection device based on at least one front acceleration sensor provided in a front part of the vehicle, in addition to a collision detection based on a room acceleration sensor provided in a room of the vehicle. When the collision is detected based on the front acceleration sensor, an integrated value of an acceleration signal of the room acceleration sensor is increased. Since the front acceleration sensor is provided in the front part of the vehicle, the front acceleration sensor detects a collision acceleration early and gives a sensor output to the control unit, even in case of a collision in which a collision acceleration transmitted to the room acceleration sensor may be weakened. By this, since the integrated value of the room acceleration sensor is increased immediately, the control unit can exactly drive the occupant protection device such as an air bag without causing a delay in collision detection.

A control apparatus of an occupant protection device, in addition to a room acceleration sensor provided in a room of a vehicle, has at least one front acceleration sensor provided in a front part of the vehicle. The front acceleration sensor, when detecting a predetermined collision acceleration, gives a detection signal to a control unit. The control unit sets a second threshold value lower than a first threshold value if the detection signal is input, and drives the occupant protection device when an integrated value of an acceleration signal of the room acceleration sensor exceeds the second threshold value. Since the front acceleration sensor is provided in the front part of the vehicle, even when a collision acceleration transmitted to the room acceleration sensor is weakened, the front acceleration sensor detects the collision acceleration early and gives the detection signal to the control unit. By this, since the second threshold value lower than the first threshold value is set, the control unit can exactly drive the occupant protection device, such as an airbag, without causing a delay.

Growing community of inventors

Tomioka, Japan

Joerg Heckel