Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Vehicle subsystem or accessory control
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-04
2002-10-08
Zanelli, Michael J. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Vehicle subsystem or accessory control
C280S801100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06463372
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle collision damage reduction system, and more specifically, it relates to a system for minimizing injury to the occupant suffered in a vehicle collision. This system works to detect an unavoidable collision during vehicle travel just prior to the collision and to deform the vehicle's structure in the collision, thus absorbing enough collision energy to ensure adequate safety space for the occupant and to enable occupant restraint protection devices to operate effectively.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various vehicle structures and occupant protective devices have been previously developed to attempt to reduce injury to occupants in a vehicle collision. The features of and problems in conventional vehicle structures and occupant protective restraining devices generally will be described below.
Vehicle Structure for Damage Reduction in Collision
To achieve reduction in occupant injury in a collision, it is first important that a safety space for an occupant be secured in the vehicle structure and that the impact applied to the occupant be reduced in a vehicle collision and in a secondary collision.
Vehicle Structure
A conventional vehicle structure of a passenger vehicle can be designed keeping in mind several assumptions regarding various collision conditions for occupant safety. In general, a crushable zone is provided in the front and rear of a vehicle structure so as to absorb impact reliably in a collision while the structural rigidity of the cabin portion as a safety space is increased for the safety of the occupants. For example, in a head-on collision, front members such as front cross members, side members, and vehicle frames are designed to be crushed in sequence to receive collision energy and thereby absorb the energy so as to minimize the deformation and rupture of the cabin portion.
However, when the collision speed is higher than the assumed value for designing members of various parts and the vehicle frame, the cabin can be greatly deformed so that an occupant restraint protective device in the cabin might be in danger of being injured and thereby not protecting the occupant properly against the applied collision energy. Also, impact energy absorption by the vehicle might be insufficient, depending on the form of the collision.
Steering Mechanism for Impact Absorption
In certain known steering mechanisms, an impact absorption mechanism may be included which undergoes displacement in the front direction when a predetermined load is applied thereto, Such steering mechanism may be assembled on the assumption that a steering wheel located in front of an occupant might be an element capable of injuring the occupant in a collision, e.g., the occupant's torso or other areas, when the occupant collides with the steering wheel in the secondary collision following after the initial vehicle collision. A collision “energy absorbing” structure (an “EA” structure) also may be assembled in an alignment device of the steering mechanism or within a column shaft so as to attempt to reduce injury.
Since EA load characteristics for this structures are designed at this time to assume that the occupant is of AM 50% (i.e., the standard size of adult male) colliding under a predetermined condition, these assumptions may be not the most suitable for occupants having various physiques and sitting in various states and for various collision states to best attempt to reduce occupant injury. A more variable system is needed.
Occupant Restraint Protective Devices for Reducing Injury in a Collision
As a typical example of an occupant restraint protective device, a seatbelt device, an airbag, and a child seat are known and becoming wide spread. However, they have the following undesirable characteristics:
In a conventional seating position, an occupant is free to assume different seating postures. The occupant even may have an unsuitable posture for securing him safely by a seatbelt or an airbag. For example, the following seating postures are not the best for providing adequate safety to the occupant:
(1) sitting excessively close to the steering wheel
(2) sitting with an excessively inclined seat back
(3) lower seat surface at the front than that at the rear.
It is preferable that the occupants having the posture be corrected to have proper posture and a proper position for being properly restrained.
In a conventional seatbelt take-up device with a pre-tensioner, the pre-tensioner is activated by determining a collision scale from the acceleration and the speed-change rate detected by a crush detecting sensor, etc. When a head-on collision of a vehicle occurs, for example, a difference of relative speed between an occupant and the vehicle occurs in a slight delay period just after the collision because of the inertia force applied to the occupant when the vehicle speed is zero. In order to drive the pre-tensioner of the seatbelt for restraining the occupant moving within such a slight time difference, a large driving force is needed. Therefore, in a conventional pre-tensioner, a strong and heavy driving source large in size is used, so that a miniaturized and lightweight seatbelt take-up device having the pre-tensioner assembled therein is difficult to be achieved.
Child Seat
In a conventional child seat (referred to as a “CRS” or “Child Restraint Seat”), because an infant is seated thereon in a collision, a restraining effect is changed in accordance with the installing state of the CRS and the reclining state. For example, when the CRS is installed forward-facing in an upright position in a collision, the impact applied to the infant is substantially restrained by buckle and belt portions. In contrast, in a reclining position, it is assumed that part of the restraining load applied to the belt can be relieved by the seat surface because the seat surface is formed to serve as a supporting face relative to the colliding direction.
On the other hand, when a collision occurs with the CRS installed rearward-facing in a reclining position, although an infant is supported by a seat back portion, the infant starts to slide in the collision direction because the inclination angle is small, so that the infant is restrained in the loaded state on a shoulder belt. However, when the CRS is in an upright position, it is assumed that the load is substantially supported by the seat back because of the large angle of inclination.
Improving Damage Reduction in Collision by Using a Collision Predicting Sensor System
To attempt to overcome some of these problems, a collision safety system has been under development in which a collision is unavoidable by determining the distance between the vehicles and the acceleration state by using a non-contact distance sensor using, inter alia, radio waves (millimetric waves), a laser, ultrasonic waves, acoustic sound waves, visible light, or the like. In such a system, for example, an embodiment is considered in that the occupant restraint protective device starts to function just before a collision in accordance with an emergency level which is determined in stages by a collision danger level determining circuit arrangement in the system, which utilizes the above-mentioned non-contact distance sensor as a collision predicting sensor attached to the front end of an own vehicle for detecting a running speed of the own vehicle, a distance and a relative speed to another vehicle or an obstacle (object to be impacted), and so forth. Some of the applicants has developed a technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-132113 as a criterion of assessing various danger levels with respect to the severity of the impending collision, which is hereby incorporated herein its entirety. By utilizing such a developed technique, a more advanced damage reduction method from a collision is achieved.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
As mentioned above, when a collision is detected just before the collision, the above-mentioned vehicle structure and the occ
Aoki Hiroshi
Ato Tadayuki
Fujii Hiroaki
Yanagi Eiji
Yokota Keishi
Foley & Lardner
Takata Corporation
Zanelli Michael J.
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