Communications – electrical: acoustic wave systems and devices – Echo systems – Distance or direction finding
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-16
2002-09-17
Pihulic, Daniel T. (Department: 3662)
Communications, electrical: acoustic wave systems and devices
Echo systems
Distance or direction finding
C367S096000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06452870
ABSTRACT:
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/136,163 filed May 27, 1999 through the parent applications.
This application is related to: (i) U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,462 entitled “Vehicle Occupant Position and Velocity Sensor” filed Jul. 21, 1995, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/040,978 filed Mar. 31, 1993, now abandoned, which in turn is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/878,571 filed May 5, 1992, now abandoned; (ii) U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,782 entitled “Vehicle Interior Identification and Monitoring System” filed May 9, 1994; (iii) U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,000 entitled “Optical Identification and Monitoring System Using Pattern Recognition for Use with Vehicles” filed Jun. 7, 1995; (iv) U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,707 entitled “Automatic Vehicle Seat Adjuster” filed Jun. 7, 1995; (v) U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,473 entitled “Automatic Vehicle Seat Adjuster” filed Jun. 7, 1995; and, (vi) U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,613 entitled “Optical Identification and Monitoring System Using Pattern Recognition for use with Vehicles” filed Jun. 7, 1995, which are all incorporated by reference herein.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the fields of sensing, detecting, monitoring and/or identifying various objects, and parts thereof, which are located within the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle. In particular, the invention relates to methods for controlling deployment of an occupant restraint in a vehicle and determining whether the occupant is a child seat.
Further, the present invention relates to an efficient and highly reliable method for developing a system for detecting the orientation of an object in the passenger compartment, e.g., a rear facing child seat (RFCS) situated in the passenger compartment in a location where it may interact with a deploying occupant protection apparatus, such as an airbag, and/or for detecting an out-of-position occupant. The resulting system permits the control and selective suppression of deployment of the occupant protection apparatus when the deployment may result in greater injury to the occupant than the crash forces themselves. This is accomplished in part through a method of determining the placement of transducers of the system, a method of developing a pattern recognition system including a method of training a neural network and/or a method for developing a system for the novel analysis of the signals from the transducers.
The application of the occupant position sensor to a new automobile vehicle model is called applications engineering. Applications engineering of occupant sensors comprises, inter alia, determining the location of the transducers, designing the transducer holders, determining the wiring layout, performing a tolerance study on the transducer locations and angular orientation, designing the circuits for the particular vehicle model, interfacing or integrating the circuits into the vehicle electronic system, and adapting the occupant sensor system to the particular vehicle model.
All of the above aspects of application engineering, with the exception of the system adaptation, are standard processes that do not differ significantly from the application engineering of any electronic system to a new vehicle model. The system adaptation, however, is unique in that it requires considerable skill and expertise and the use of novel technologies to create a system that is optimized for a particular vehicle.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Prior Art on Sensing of Out-of-position Occupants and Rear Facing Child Seats
Whereas thousands of lives have been saved by airbags, a large number of people have also been injured, some seriously, by the deploying airbag, and thus significant improvements to the airbag system are necessary. As discussed in detail in one or more of the patents and patent applications cross-referenced above, for a variety of reasons, vehicle occupants may be too close to the airbag before it deploys and can be seriously injured or killed as a result of any deployment thereof. Also, a child in a rear facing child seat which is placed on the right front passenger seat is in danger of being seriously injured if the passenger airbag deploys. For these reasons and, as first publicly disclosed in Breed, D. S. “How Airbags Work” presented at the International Conference on Seatbelts and Airbags in 1993, in Canada, occupant position sensing and rear facing child seat detection is required in order to minimize the damages caused by deploying airbags. It is also be required in order to minimize the damage caused by the deployment of other types of occupant protection and/or restraint devices which might be installed in the vehicle.
Initially, these systems will solve the out-of-position occupant and the rear facing child seat problems related to current airbag systems and prevent unneeded and unwanted airbag deployments when a front seat is unoccupied. However, airbags are now under development to protect rear seat occupants in vehicle crashes and all occupants in side impacts. A system is therefore needed to detect the presence of occupants, determine if they are out-of-position (defined below) and to identify the presence of a rear facing child seat in the rear seat. Future automobiles are expected to have eight or more airbags as protection is sought for rear seat occupants and from side impacts. In addition to eliminating the disturbance and possible harm of unnecessary airbag deployments, the cost of replacing these airbags will be excessive if they all deploy in an accident needlessly.
Inflators now exist which will adjust the amount of gas flowing to or from the airbag to account for the size and position of the occupant and for the severity of the accident. The vehicle identification and monitoring system (VIMS) discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,782, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/798,029 filed Feb. 6, 1997 among others, will control such inflators based on the presence and position of vehicle occupants or of a rear facing child seat. The instant invention is concerned with the process of adapting the vehicle interior monitoring systems to a particular vehicle model and achieving a high system accuracy and reliability as discussed in greater detail below.
The automatic adjustment of the deployment rate of the airbag based on occupant identification and position and on crash severity has been termed “smart airbags”. Central to the development of smart airbags is the occupant identification and position determination systems described in the above-referenced patents and patent applications and to the methods described herein for adapting those systems to a particular vehicle model. To complete the development of smart airbags, an anticipatory crash detecting system such as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/247,760 filed May 23, 1994 is also desirable. Prior to the implementation of anticipatory crash sensing, the use of a neural network smart crash sensor which identifies the type of crash and thus its severity based on the early part of the crash acceleration signature should be developed and thereafter implemented. U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,701 (Breed) describes a crash sensor based on neural networks. This crash sensor, as with all other crash sensors, determines whether or not the crash is of sufficient severity to require deployment of the airbag and, if so, initiates the deployment. A neural network based on a smart airbag crash sensor could also be designed to identify the crash and categorize it with regard to severity thus permitting the airbag deployment to be matched not only to the characteristics and position of the occupant but also the severity and timing of the crash itself (this being described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/798,029 referenced above).
The need for an occupant out-of-position sensor has also been observed by others and several methods have been described in certain U.S. patents for determining the position of an occupant of a motor vehicle. However, n
Breed David S.
Duvall Wilbur E.
Varga Andrew J.
Automotive Technologies International Inc.
Pihulic Daniel T.
Roffe Brian
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