Importance

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Abstract

A process and a circuit control a control unit of a system for protecting vehicle occupants, with a view toward triggering the protection system if the accident is sufficiently serious. The control unit contains one or more sensors which supply sensor signals during the accident, and it contains a computing unit. During the accident, the latter establishes one ACTUAL value or a plurality of different ACTUAL values characterizing the course of the accident on the basis of the sensor signals. It also automatically and continuously redefines a time-variable triggering threshold value in each case, which is namely directly or indirectly dependent on the changes in the sensor signals during the course of the accident. The computing unit compares one or more ACTUAL values with the triggering threshold value being respectively assigned to the ACTUAL value. However, on the basis of the progression of the ACTUAL value/ACTUAL values, it defines the triggering threshold value at any instant in such a way that it changes in a fluctuating manner at least during an accident phase, namely without delay in dependence on the instantaneous value of the ACTUAL value/ACTUAL values, even if during this accident phase there occur constantly major decelerations without the collision direction altering.

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First Claim