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:
May. 16, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 23, 1998
David S Wilson, Farmington, MI (US);
Michael R Sewell, Chatham, CA;
Automation Systems Laboratory, Inc., Farmington Hills, MI (US);
Abstract
A system 10 and method for performing diagnostic testing on a mechanical safing sensor used in vehicular safety restraint and vehicle crash discrimination systems includes an accelerometer 12 having an output 14 representative of acceleration, and a processor 20 having an first input 22 responsive to the accelerometer output 14 and a second input 24 responsive to a binary output 18 generated by a mechanical safing sensor 16. The system utilizes normally occurring deceleration events to reliably diagnose safing sensor malfunctions while requiring minimal additional hardware over conventional vehicle safety restraint systems.