Importance

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Abstract

An arrangement and method for controlling deployment of a side airbag from an airbag module to protect an occupant in a seat of a vehicle in a crash. The presence of an occupant and/or position of the occupant or a part thereof is/are determined and deployment of the side airbag is controlled based thereon. To determine the presence of the occupant and/or position of the occupant or part thereof, a transducer is arranged to receive waves from a space above a seat portion of the seat and a signal representative of the presence and/or position of the occupant is generated based on the waves received by the transducer. The transducer can be designed to transmit waves into the space above the seat portion of the seat which are also receivable thereby. The transducer may be mounted in a door of the vehicle to enable the distance between the occupant and the door to be determined, i.e., to determine whether the occupant is leaning against the door, and possibly adjacent the airbag module if it is situated in the door. In these cases, deployment of the side airbag can be suppressed. In the alternative the time at which deployment of the side airbag starts, the rate of gas flow into the side airbag, the rate of gas flow out of the side airbag and/or the rate of deployment of the side airbag is/are controlled.

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First Claim