Passenger protection apparatus

摘要

A passenger protection apparatus of a simple construction is capable of stably performing air bag control and preventing erroneous control due to objects such as passenger's hands, newspapers, etc., other than passenger' head. A collision detection part detects a collision of a vehicle, and an object detection part detects an object in a prescribed object detection area rearwardly of an air bag installation surface in the vehicle based on a signal from a sensor. An air bag control signal generation part controls the expansion of an air bag based on the detection results of the object detection part and the collision detection part. The air bag control signal generation part makes the air bag control signal into an expansion permission signal only when an object exists in the object detection area at the time of detection of the collision or within a predetermined time from the detection of the collision.