Nhk Spring Co., Ltd.

The Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.

Ko Masuda

Katsutoshi Sasaki

Takuya Nishimoto

Hiroshi Matsunaga

Takashi Takeshita

Hiroyuki Yamazaki

Takayuki Enomoto

Ken Obata

Naobumi Kuboki

Atsuo Matsumoto

Hiroaki Nishiguma

Shinichi Horibata

Yuji Tokiwa

Norio Kawashima

Yuji Niikura

Osamu Ooki

There is provided a seat back device including: a seat back that is placed on a rear side of a vehicle cabin and has a movable portion that is movably disposed in correspondence to a lower back region of a seated passenger and a forwardly collapsible portion that is forwardly collapsibly disposed on a vehicle upper side of the movable portion; a frame member that is disposed inside the seat back and in which is formed an open portion that has a size including the movable portion and the forwardly collapsible portion and that makes the vehicle cabin and a luggage compartment communicate; an angle adjusting mechanism which adjusts the movable portion about an axis along a vehicle width direction to a predetermined angle; and a trunk-through mechanism which forwardly collapses the movable portion and the forwardly collapsible portion from the seat back and opens the open portion.

Seat back device

In a vehicle occupant restraint system for restraining a lower part of a vehicle occupant, an arrangement for moving a restraining member from a retracted position to a deployed position upon detection and/or prediction of a vehicle crash by a crash sensor is adapted in such a manner that the restraining member cannot be made to move from the deployed position to the retracted position by an external force applied to the restraining member but can be made to move from the retracted position to the deployed position and from the deployed position back to the retracted position by a force transmitted from a power actuator to the restraining member via a power transmitting member. Thus, while the restraining member is capable of withstanding the load of restraining the vehicle occupant, even when the restraining member is deployed, it can be brought back to the retracted position so that the restraining system can be used repeatedly. This is particularly significant when the crash sensor includes a crash prediction sensor because the prediction could be wrong and the restraining member may have to be deployed a number of times even when a vehicle crash has never occurred.

Vehicle occupant restraint system

In a vehicle seat, a central support member typically consisting of wire mesh or grid and supports most of the load of the vehicle occupant via spring members, and undergoes a relatively large displacement when the occupant is seated in the seat. Thus, by detecting the displacements of various parts of the central support member, preferably peripheral parts thereof, the magnitude of the total load and distribution of the load can be evaluated both reliably and accurately. Additionally, displacement sensors for measuring such large displacements are relatively inexpensive and easy to handle. Also, such sensors would not interfere with the existing seat designs, and would not be adversely affected by the equipment of the seat such as seat heaters.

Vehicle seat incorporated with an occupant sensor

A seat-occupant sensing device for a car seat is provided, such that a heater can be installed in the seat without deterioration of sitting comfort. A load sensor is mounted to a cushion frame of a car seat. The end of a flexible cushion support is linked with the load sensor. Because the flexible cushion support flexes when a person sits on the seat, the load sensor detects the moment when the person sits on the seat.

Car-seat-occupant sensing device

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Ko Masuda