Method and system for controlling a vehicle occupant safety system based on crash severity

摘要

A method and system for controlling a vehicle occupant safety system based on crash severity. The system uses an acceleration signal indicating the acceleration of the vehicle upon occurrence of a crash to determine whether to trigger a restraint device. A controller implements a crash sensing algorithm to determine whether the severity of the crash warrants deployment of the safety restraint. The algorithm uses a predicted velocity and an acceleration peak time derived from the acceleration signal. The predicted velocity is indicative of the relative velocity between the passenger and the vehicle at a predetermined time following detection of a crash event. The acceleration peak time is the time period between peak acceleration values that correspond to contacting of significant structural elements of the vehicle, such as the bumper and the radiator. The two values are compared to their respective thresholds and if both of them exceed their thresholds then a deployment signal is generated to trigger the safety restraint.