Importance

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Abstract

A roof-mounted air bag system, having a passenger position sensor array of capacitive coupling passenger position sensors, to determine position and motion of a passenger by triangulation, from microprocessor analysis of distances of the passenger to the various sensors of the array and analysis of the changes of said distances with time; the combination of a three-axis vehicle rollover sensor and microprocessor analysis of the output of said sensor, to both block air bag deployment in the event that said sensor output indicates a vehicle rollover, and also confirm a crash event by sensing rapid angular vehicle acceleration; a microprocessor to analyze signals from the passenger position sensor array, and from the rollover sensor, and to order air bag deployment when it would be helpful but not otherwise; an air bag with an inflated configuration having two principal chambers, one inflating downward along the windshield and the other inflated to the rear of the first, with a reentrant slot-shaped space between them which can accommodate a forwardly positioned passenger, such as an infant in a rear facing car seat, which inflation configuration can reduce the likelihood of injury to said passenger resulting from the air bag deployment; and means in the microprocessor for brief recording of passenger motion data from the passenger position sensor array, by the microprocessor, for possible later use in crash analysis, which may lead to ideas for improvement of design of the vehicle or air bag system.

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First Claim