The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 20, 1996
Filed:
May. 16, 1994
Robert C Kalberer, Boulder, CO (US);
Dan Goor, Colorado Springs, CO (US);
Flight Safety Systems Inc., Boulder, CO (US);
Abstract
Airbags are positioned in a general aviation aircraft cockpit relative to a control yoke, a pilot, and a front seat passenger. Airbag actuation is controlled by a adaptive programmable controller such as a microcomputer. Airbag actuation is based upon information that the controller receives from multiple acceleration sensors. The outputs of the acceleration sensors are subjected to thresholding techniques, such as output signal weighting and/or majority voting. A programmable threshold is adaptively established for the controller based upon unique aircraft parameters, such as weight, altitude, angle of attack, ground and/or air speed, etc. The controller ignores all acceleration sensor inputs that do not meet this adaptive threshold. Thus, airbag actuation takes place only when a sufficient acceleration event occurs concurrently with the presence or absence of defined aircraft parameters that establish a proper threshold for the acceleration event. Airbag inflation includes a controllable delay that is used to customize airbag inflation to particular aircraft parameters, such as ground/air speed and weight.