Method and apparatus for reducing collision injury/damage of vehicles

摘要

An on-vehicle apparatus is provided to reduce damage from collisions. In the apparatus, an object located in a field in a travel direction of a vehicle is detected and a time to collision (TTC) is detected. A controller performs automatic intervention braking in the vehicle when it determined that the time to collision is equal to or shorter than a first threshold time. Further, when it determined that the time to collision is equal to or shorter than a second threshold time shorter than the first threshold time and meets a preset actuation condition, a protection controller makes a protection device active for vehicle protection. A collision speed is also estimated based on an deceleration of the vehicle caused by the automatic intervention braking. The preset actuation condition is a condition that the estimated collision speed is equal to or higher than a preset threshold speeds.

主权项

1. An apparatus for reducing damage from collisions, the apparatus being mounted on a vehicle provided with a protection device and a braking device, the apparatus comprising:
a first detector detecting an object which is present in a field in a travel direction of the vehicle; a time estimator estimating, repeatedly, at first time intervals, a time to collision (TTC) on the basis of results detected by the first detector, the time to collision being defined as a ratio of a relative distance between the object and the vehicle to a relative speed between the object and the vehicle; a braking controller activating the braking device to perform automatic intervention braking of the vehicle at a time when the time to collision detected by the time estimator is equal to or shorter than a first threshold time; a second detector detecting a deceleration of the vehicle; a speed estimator starting to estimate, repeatedly, at second time intervals, a collision speed of the vehicle on the basis of the deceleration detected by the second detector at the time when the time to collision detected by the time estimator becomes equal to or shorter than the first threshold time, wherein the collision speed being defined as a vehicle speed estimated under an assumption that the time to collision would become zero which means a collision between the vehicle and the object, the second time intervals being shorter than the first time intervals; a determination unit determining, every time when the collision speed is estimated, i) whether or not the time to collision is equal to or shorter than a second threshold time, the second threshold time being shorter than the first threshold time; and ii) whether or not the collision speed estimated by the speed estimator is equal to or higher than a preset threshold speed; and a protection controller activating the protection device when the determination unit determines that the time to collision is equal to or shorter than the second threshold time and determines that the collision speed is equal to or higher than the preset threshold speed.