Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Mitsubishi Jidosha Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Takashi Furui

Yukihiro Okimoto

Katsuhiko Ohmae

Toshiyuki Yamashita

Shinichi Harase

Mitsunori Maruyama

Nobuyoshi Kura

Satoru Inoue

Takashi Tokunaga

Tohru Matsumoto

Akihiko Imagi

Hiroyuki Ueda

Yasumasa Hanazaki

Hidehiko Kinoshita

Yuji Hiraoka

Hisatsugu Ito

Yoshiaki Yamazaki

Kouichi Harada

Sachiko Nakamura

Hideki Nishi

Takami Sugiyama

A rollover judging device adjusts the magnitude of an angular velocity component &#x3c9; of a vehicle in a direction of a rollover, which is measured by an angular velocity sensor, by using an &#x3c9; adjusting uniton the basis of an acceleration component of the vehicle in its rightward or leftward direction or in its upward or downward direction, which is measured by an acceleration sensor, calculates an angle component &#x3b8;o by integrating with respect to time this adjusted angular velocity component &#x3c9;o by using an integrator, carries out predetermined multiplication and addition processes by using a judging meanson the basis of this angle component &#x3b8;o and the measured angular velocity component &#x3c9;, and, when the result of this addition process exceeds a preset threshold Th, outputs a signal indicating judgment of occurrence of a rollover to an air bag control device

Rollover judging device

A collision determination is made by using at least one of the output signals of a front G sensor disposed on a vehicle's fore-end and an analog G sensor disposed within the vehicle interior; a safety determination is made by using at least one of the output signals of the analog G sensor, the front G sensor, and a safing G sensor; and when both of the collision determining signal and the safing signal indicate the significance, an application specific IC and a transistor switch actuate a squib activating an air bag.

Occupant protection activation device

An acceleration sensor unit including a board on which an acceleration sensor is mounted, a support part for supporting the board, and a housing in which the support part and the acceleration sensor are contained, the board is installed in the housing by means of the support part so as to swing with respect to the housing.

Acceleration sensor unit

A mechanical acceleration switch acting in response to a collision involving a vehicle tends to occur with chattering, thereby lowering the reliability of operation due to insufficient application of an ignition current to an igniter of an air bag in the vehicle. When the mechanical acceleration switch is closed and first-stage igniters are ignited, a forced igniter is turned on. Even if chattering occurs in the mechanical acceleration switch, the first-stage igniters and a backup capacitor are conductively connected by turning on a driving transistor, such that an electric current is sufficiently delivered to the igniters. As a result, it is possible to improve the reliability of the operation of starting the air bag. Furthermore, it is no longer necessary to increase a capacity of the capacitor and change the constitution of the mechanical acceleration switch to decrease chattering therewith.

Air bag starter and backup circuit used therein

A two-stage ignition type air bag actuator having first-stage inflators and second-stage inflators, comprising power supply for supplying power to the igniting devices for the inflators, a mechanical acceleration switch disposed between the common junction of the respective igniting devices , and and the power supply , and a forcible igniting mechanism disposed in parallel with the mechanical acceleration switch for electrically connecting or disconnecting the common junction and the power supply

Air bag start device

When an on-board power source is turned off, after a predetermined time has elapsed, a microcomputer writes predetermined data in a nonvolatile memory and when the on-board power source is turned on, the microcomputer judges whether the predetermined data is written in the nonvolatile memory or not. If the judgment shows that the predetermined data is not written in the nonvolatile memory the microcomputer determines a backup capacitor not to be working normally. The predetermined time is shorter than the operating time of the microcomputer determined by the discharge time of the backup capacitor when the backup capacitor is working normally, and is longer than the operating time of the microcomputer determined by the discharge time of the backup capacitor when the backup capacitor is not working normally.

Passive safety device for vehicle

A device for starting an occupant crash protector can output, as a start signal, a logical product of an output of a collision determining mechanism and an output of a non-collision determining mechanism. The collision determining mechanism detects a collision including an impact that does not require a start-up. The non-collision determining mechanism detects only a collision that requires a start-up using a value obtained by subtracting a value varied with time from the output of an acceleration sensor and integrating the result of the subtraction.

Device for starting occupant crash protector

A device of detecting collision of a vehicle for determining collision of a vehicle based on an acceleration from an acceleration detecting means for detecting a collision acceleration of the vehicle, the device including a collision force calculating means for calculating an estimated collision force caused in the vehicle in the collision based on the collision acceleration and a collision determining means for determining the collision based on the estimated collision force.

Device of detecting vehicle collision and device of determining start-up

A starting device integrates an output signal of an acceleration sensor by a band-pass integrating means while restricting an upper limit of the output signal in a specified frequency range by an upper limit restricting means, and is provided with a comparing means for outputting a starting signal when the integrated value is larger than a predetermined threshold value. In this way, the starting device is certainly started by an acceleration waveform of collision that must start the device. Further, the device is not influenced by vibration components caused immediately after the beginning of collision with respect to a low-speed collision such as 8 mile/hour frontal collision that must not start the device.

Starting device for a passenger protecting device

An actuating apparatus for a passenger protecting apparatus the characteristics of which are easily adjusted, and which is small in size, and the cost of which can be suppressed to be inexpensive, has a comparatively simple construction, that is to say, is constructed to combine a mechanical acceleration switch having no mechanism for holding the states of the contacts thereof with electric circuits such as an integrating circuit, a comparing circuit and the like for controlling a semiconductor switch in the igniting circuit thereof.

Passenger protecting apparatus and actuating apparatus therefor

A starting apparatus of a passenger protecting apparatus is actuated by detecting collision of a vehicle. The starting apparatus is provided so as to subtract a predetermined value from an acceleration signal fed from G sensor and integrate the subtracted acceleration signal, and forcedly set an integrated value to zero if the integrated value is less than zero. Further, the starting apparatus is provided so as to provide a starting signal when the integrated value exceeds a preset threshold value. Therefore, it is possible to discriminate collision to start the apparatus from other collision, prevent starting means from being unnecessarily actuated, and avoid malfunction of the starting means.

Starting apparatus of passenger protecting apparatus and method thereof

An electronic system for activating a vehicle rider protection apparatus capable of preventing the erroneous activation caused by the failure or malfunctioning of the triggering circuit in the system. An acceleration sensor produces a vehicle acceleration signal, and it is processed independently by a digital signal processor and analog signal processing circuits, which produce trigger signals S.sub.A, S.sub.B and S.sub.D on detecting a collision of the vehicle. An OR gate takes logical sum of the signals S.sub.A and S.sub.B, and produces a trigger signal S.sub.C. An AND gate takes logical product of the signals S.sub.C and S.sub.D, and produces a final trigger signal S.sub.E. In response to the final trigger signal S.sub.E, a current is supplied to a squib, which then ignites and activates the vehicle rider protection apparatus. A diagnostic circuit applies a test signal to the analog signal processing circuits, and tests the operation of the circuits by analyzing the outputs of the circuits.

Electronic system for activating a vehicle rider protection apparatus

A starting apparatus for a passenger protecting apparatus includes a collision deciding unit, a control unit, and a trigger. The collision deciding unit makes a collision decision depending upon output of an acceleration sensor which detects acceleration at a time of collision. The control unit controls generation of a starting signal based upon a difference between output of a decelerating direction integrating unit, which integrates the acceleration signal of the acceleration sensor in the decelerating direction, and output of accelerating direction integrating unit, which integrates the acceleration signal of the acceleration sensor in an acceleration direction. The trigger outputs the starting signal based on output of the collision deciding unit and output of the control unit.

Starting apparatus for passenger protecting apparatus

Disclosed herein is a start control device for starting a vehicle passenger protecting device such as an air bag, which does not respond to an impact against which the vehicle passenger protecting device must not be started, but quickly responds to a collision against which the vehicle passenger protecting device must be started. The start control device includes a start level generator for setting a decision level of start signal generation to a higher level for a predetermined time from a rise timing of an acceleration signal obtained from an acceleration sensor in deciding a collision by using an integral value of the acceleration signal. With this arrangement, in case of the impact against which the vehicle passenger protecting device must not be started, the start signal can be prevented from being generated.

Start control device for vehicle passenger protecting device

A starting apparatus is provided to start at least a two passenger protecting apparatus. In the starting apparatus, an auxiliary power supply has a capacitor supplied by a power source which is mounted to a vehicle, and is independently provided for each passenger protecting apparatus. Further, an acceleration switch serves to feed current from the auxiliary power supply to a squib for starting the passenger protecting apparatus when a vehicle acceleration exceeds a predetermined acceleration. The acceleration switch is provided for only one squib, and make and break of this switch is detected. If the switch is closed, switches corresponding to other squibs are turned ON so that current is fed to the squibs from each auxiliary power supply.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Takashi Furui