DEVICE AND METHOD FOR RESTRAINING OCCUPANT UPON SIDE CRASH OF VEHICLE AGAINT OBJECT

摘要

PURPOSE: To protect an occupant adequately during the side impact of a vehicle by providing an air bag and an accelerometer for measuring the sideways acceleration of the vehicle in a door adjacent to the occupant, finding out the sideways speed value of the vehicle from an acceleraometer output and deploying the air bag when the speed exceeds a prescribed value. CONSTITUTION: An air bag 20 is arranged in the door 22 of a vehicle adjacent to an occupant and an accelerometer 50 for measuring the sideways acceleration is provided on the inside panel 28 of the door 22 and its output signal 52 changes as the function of the vehicular acceleration in the direction perpendicular to the side of the vehicle. The output signal 52 is inputted to a micro computer 56 through an amplification circuit 54 and here the accelromater signal is processed and it is judged whether the state is a deployment impact state for deploying the air bag. When it is yes, the signal is sent to a drive circuit 62 and a switch 66 turns on by the output 64 from here and a squib 70 is ignited and the air bag 20 becomes in an operation state 72.