Communications: electrical – Land vehicle alarms or indicators – Internal alarm or indicator responsive to a condition of the...
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-08
2001-05-08
Pope, Daryl (Department: 2736)
Communications: electrical
Land vehicle alarms or indicators
Internal alarm or indicator responsive to a condition of the...
C340S440000, C180S282000, C280S728100, C280S735000, C280S753000, C701S045000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06229437
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for controlling a motor vehicle occupant protection system. The device includes a control unit having an encoder outputting encoded messages and a transmitter for transmitting the encoded messages as output signals.
Such a device is disposed separately, i.e. for example in a side part of the motor vehicle and is described in European Patent Application EP 0 693 401 A2. The known device includes an acceleration sensor and a control unit with an encoder for encoding messages and a transmitter for transmitting the encoded messages in the form of signals. The messages to be transmitted are transmitted in pulse-width-modulated form to an evaluation device disposed centrally within the vehicle. Such a message may for example have the content: “The occupant protection system is to be triggered, because the recorded acceleration has exceeded a predetermined threshold value”. Occupant protection system ignition elements connected to the evaluation device, such as, for example, lateral airbags, belt tighteners, head airbags or the like are acted upon with energy, due to an encoded message being transmitted without error, so that the associated occupant protection systems are activated. In order to recognize a defective transmission between a separate device and the central evaluation device, the duration of the period of the transmitted signals is compared with a theoretical period duration in the evaluation device. If the measured period duration and theoretical period duration are not concordant, the transmitted message is discarded. A defective transmission can be caused, in particular by electromagnetic fields acting on the data line.
Since a signal representing that a message has been sent by the separate device is periodically sent to the central evaluation device, a defective signal is at least prevented from being permanently ignored. However, if the signals transmitted subsequently to a defective signal are also defective then, specifically in the case of signals that have triggering instructions as their content, valuable time is wasted for triggering the occupant protection system. In particular, the triggering of an occupant protection system for side-impact protection can subsequently take place too late and cause injuries to the occupant. Because the time required for the triggering of occupant protection systems for side-impact protection are set extremely short, within 5 msec from the commencement of side impact, the triggering decision should be made, since there is no crumple zone protecting the occupant. The triggering time cannot be obtained in time when several defective signals are transmitted one after the other.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a device for controlling a motor vehicle occupant protection system which overcomes the herein afore-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known devices of this general type, which transmits data relevant to a triggering of an occupant protection system and enables a secure transmission of messages to a remotely disposed control unit in the motor vehicle within a very short time.
With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, in a motor vehicle occupant protection system, an apparatus for controlling a motor vehicle occupant protection device, the apparatus including: a control unit having an encoder for encoding messages and a transmitter connected to the encoder for transmitting encoded messages as output signals; and the encoded messages include a first encoded message having a first number of positions and containing information relevant to safety and a second encoded message having a second number of positions greater than the first number of positions.
With the foregoing and other objects in view there is also provided, in accordance with the invention, in a motor vehicle occupant protection system, an apparatus for controlling a motor vehicle occupant protection device, the apparatus including: a control unit having an encoder for encoding messages and a transmitter connected to the encoder for transmitting encoded messages as output signals; and the encoded messages include a first encoded message containing information relevant to safety and a second encoded message, each of the encoded messages having an information word and a control word, the information word of the first encoded message having a first number of positions and the information word of the second encoded message having a second number of positions greater than the first number of positions.
With the foregoing and other objects in view there is further provided, in accordance with the invention, in a motor vehicle occupant protection system, an apparatus for controlling a motor vehicle occupant protection device, the apparatus including a control unit having an encoder for encoding messages containing information relevant to safety and a transmitter connected to the encoder for transmitting encoded messages as output signals, and the encoded messages are encoded with an error-correction code.
The inventive device is based on the concept that the transmitter of the device operates serially and files the individual symbols of the encoded messages in temporal succession onto the transmission medium, preferably a data line. In addition, individual inventive concepts come to light using parallel transmission.
According to the invention, messages with differing content/information are converted into encoded message words of differing length. In this case, the first encoded message has the first number of positions, and the second encoded message has the second number of positions, the first number being smaller than the second number. Preferably, in this case messages which require or suggest a triggering of the associated occupant protection system contain in encoded form a smaller number of positions than messages which exhibit, for example, information independent of acceleration. As a result of the small number of positions of an encoded message containing, for example, a triggering instruction, the same can be transmitted serially in an extremely short time and, moreover, can be evaluated extremely quickly in the control device receiving the message, so that the corresponding measures can be introduced immediately. Messages of less urgent content may have, in encoded form, a substantially larger number of positions and thus a larger word length. The inventive device also reveals advantages in particular in circumstances in which there are provided a large number of different messages which, in the presence of conventional encoding with the same number of positions for all messages, would require a large number of positions.
An encoded message may include not only an information word which contains the sense content of the message in encoded form, but also a control word which controls the transmission of the encoded message. In particular in the case of asynchronous data transmission but also in the case of synchronous data transmission, the control word is necessary over and above the information word. As a rule, it has a position which precedes the information word and which is occupied by a start signal which characterizes the start of a following information word. Following the information word, there is usually a further position which is associated with the control word of the encoded message and which has a stop symbol, which characterizes the end of a transmitted information word. It is essential in the case of a device which generates messages encoded in this fashion that at least the information word has, dependent on the content of a message, differing lengths. In this case, if appropriate, the message length of the different messages (i.e. the total number of positions which can be occupied by symbols) may be the same, even if the one encoded message enjoys higher priority and its information word has only a few positions and the other message has a lo
Baumgartner Walter
Hermann Stefan
Koppl Michael
Schmid Gerhard
Greenberg Laurence A.
Lerner Herbert L.
Pope Daryl
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
Stemer Werner H.
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