An alternative seating arrangement of a vehicle with a variety of vehicle restraints and occupant safety systems that are associated with the alternative seating arrangement. Many embodiments include rear facing and side facing seats.

A cargo alerting system that is self-arming. Placing a child in a car seat having sensors arms the system. A keyfob, or smartphone, which is carried by the user, outputs an alarm when the keyfob is moved farther than a pre-determined distance from the base, which may be in the car seat, or otherwise connected to a child in the vehicle. This preset distance could be any desired distance. The keyfob and alarm refocus the user's attention on the cargo within the vehicle.

A pneumatic identification apparatus for the body weight of a seat occupant includes a control unit and at least one sensing apparatus each including a pneumatic sensing apparatus and an auxiliary sensing apparatus; the pneumatic sensing apparatus includes at least one soft elastic hollow structure body and a sensing unit; the soft elastic hollow structure body communicates with a first air pressure sensor, the first air pressure sensor being configured to measure a first air pressure value P.sub.a in the soft elastic hollow structure body; the control unit is configured to compare the first air pressure value P.sub.a with standard set values and correspondingly output a body weight type; and the auxiliary sensing apparatus includes a top pressure-bearing plate and a bottom carrying plate respectively mounted on two end faces of the soft elastic hollow structure body. Further provided is a pneumatic identification seat provided with the pneumatic identification apparatus.

A microclimate control system for a seated occupant includes a seat having a cushion and a back respectively including a first array of pressure sensors and a second array of pressure sensors. The first array of pressure sensors provides a cushion occupant output. The second array of pressure sensors provides a back occupant output. The cushion and back occupant outputs correspond to load distributions from the seated occupant. At least one thermal effector is configured to provide thermal conditioning to the seated occupant. A controller is in communication with the first and second arrays of pressure sensors and with the at least one thermal effector. The controller includes an occupant personal parameters algorithm configured to extract occupant personal parameters based upon the cushion and back occupant outputs. The occupant personal parameters include at least two of an occupant weight, an occupant height, and an occupant gender. The occupant personal parameter algorithm estimates an occupant clothing insulation value from the occupant personal parameters. The controller is configured to regulate the at least one thermal effector based upon the occupant clothing insulation value.

Example vehicle occupancy management systems and methods are described. In one implementation, a method receives a current vehicle image representing a current interior of a vehicle. An occupancy management system detects at least one passenger in the vehicle based on the current vehicle image and determines a seating location of the passenger. A seat map is generated that identifies the seating location of the passenger in the vehicle.

A vehicular child monitoring system includes a child monitoring device having a connector for securing the device within a motor vehicle and oriented toward a child seat. The device includes a mirror, a seat connector, a camera, and a control system having a wireless communication unit and a plurality of sensors. The sensors include a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a proximity sensor, and a child detection sensor. A child monitoring application is communicatively linked to the communication unit and includes functionality for displaying the information received from the camera and each of the sensors, and for determining a separation distance with the child monitoring device. The system including functionality for determining that a child is in the car seat and sending an alarm to an external device if the vehicle temperature is above a set threshold.

A positioning system includes a deflection surface disposed within a seat, configured to support an occupant in the seat, and movable in response to motion of the occupant. The positioning system also includes a lock movable between an unlocked position in which the lock permits motion of the deflection surface relative to motion of the occupant and a locked position in which the lock restrains motion of the deflection surface relative to motion of the occupant. The lock is configured to move from the unlocked position to the locked position in response to receiving a signal from a controller, the signal including information indicative of a vehicle event.

Disclosed are a vehicle and a control method thereof. The vehicle includes a vehicle seal, a sensing device including a camera provided to obtain image data toward an outer lateral direction of a driver seat of the vehicle a seat motor provided to implement a movement including at least one of folding, reclining, sliding and rotating of the vehicle seat, and a controller including a processor and a memory provided to process the image data, wherein the controller identifies height information of a driver based on processing of the image data, and identifies a getting-on position based on the height information of the driver and existing height information stored in the memory and controls the seat motor to shift the vehicle seat to the identified getting-on position.

A capacitive sensor includes: a substrate that is in the form of a sheet; and a sensor electrode that is capacitive and disposed on a frontside of the substrate. The sensor electrode is a conductive fabric made by applying a metal plating on a mesh fabric that is woven of a plurality of warps and a plurality of wefts and that has openings each formed by two adjacent warps among the plurality of warps and two adjacent wefts among the plurality of wefts. An area defined by a maximum outside diameter of a warp or weft is smaller than an area of an opening space of each of the openings.

An unattended occupant alarm assembly includes a plurality of passenger pressure pads that is each integrated into a respective passenger seat in a vehicle to detect the weight of a passenger sitting in any other the passenger seats. A driver pressure pad is integrated into a driver's seat of the vehicle to detect the weight of a driver sitting in the driver's seat. A control unit is coupled to the vehicle. The control unit is actuated into an alert condition when the driver pressure pad does not detect the weight of the driver and any of the passenger pressure pads detects the weight of the passenger after a pre-determined duration of time. Additionally, the vehicle horn is actuated to emit an audible alarm and the electric window system is actuated to roll down windows of the vehicle when the control unit is actuated into the alert condition.