A knee airbag apparatus for an autonomous vehicle, wherein a first cushion and a second cushion are deployed toward the knees of a passenger and a third cushion is deployed toward the feet and shins of the passenger according to a collision mode (head-on collision, offset collision or oblique collision) and a position (normal position or relaxation position) of a seat.

A restraint system for a vehicle is disclosed. The restraint system includes a seat shaped to accommodate an occupant, wherein the seat includes a seat back and an energy absorption member that expands from a stowed position and into a deployed position. The energy absorption member fills a volume of space behind the seat back when in the deployed position to absorb energy that would otherwise be imparted towards an occupant of the seat during an impact involving the vehicle. The restraint system also includes an impact sensing device generating an impact signal in response to detecting the impact involving the vehicle is imminent. The impact signal indicates an orientation and magnitude of the impact involving the vehicle. The restraint system includes a control module in electronic communication with the energy absorption member and the impact sensing device.

An apparatus includes a first capture device, a second capture device and a processor. The first capture device may generate a first plurality of video frames corresponding to an interior view of a vehicle. The second capture device may generate a second plurality of video frames corresponding to an area outside of the vehicle. The processor may be configured to perform operations to detect objects in the video frames, detect occupants of the vehicle based on the objects detected in the first video frames, determine whether a potential collision is unavoidable based on the objects detected in the second video frames and select a reaction if the potential collision is unavoidable. The reaction may be selected to protect occupants determined to be vulnerable based on characteristics of the occupants. The characteristics may be determined by performing the operations on each of the occupants.

A vehicle for protecting an occupant includes: a plurality of safe devices provided in the vehicle for protecting the occupant; first sensors configured to obtain information on a seat or the occupant within the vehicle; second sensors configured to detect a collision with other objects; and a processor which is operatively connected to the safe devices, the first sensors, and the second sensors. The processor is configured to obtain state information on at least one of the seat or the occupant based on the information obtained from the first sensors, to determine at least one safe device to be operated among the plurality of safe devices based on the state information on the at least one of the seat or the occupant, and to operate the determined at least one safe device when at least one of the second sensors detects a collision satisfying a predetermined condition.

A method for detecting the displacement position of a vehicle seat is described. When the vehicle seat is being displaced, a magnetic field-sensitive sensor device monitors a change of one magnetic field component and depending on the output signal which has been generated by the sensor device, a conclusion is drawn about the adjustment position of the vehicle seat. The magnetic field-sensitive sensor device is displaced relative to a measuring section using the magnetic field-sensitive device. An absolute value of the magnetic field strength of a magnetic field whose magnetic field strength changes essentially continuously along a longitudinal extension of the measuring section is detected and converted into an absolute displacement position of the vehicle seat.

An occupant protection apparatus includes a seat arrangement determination unit that determines the arrangement of seats and a collision determination unit that determines information about collision occurring to a vehicle. A deployment control unit deploys an airbag when the direction of the seat and the direction of the seat determined by the scat arrangement determination unit (94) are opposed to each other, and the direction of the collision determined by the collision determination unit is on the front side of the seat, or on the front side of the seat.

A child safety seat includes a base, a seat body and a notifying system. The seat body is disposed on the base and movable relative to the base between a front facing position and a rear facing position. The notifying system includes an actuated device disposed on one of the base and the seat body, an actuating component and a notifying device. The actuating component is disposed on another one of the base and the seat body and configured to actuate the actuated device when the seat body reaches at least one of the front facing position and the rear facing position. The notifying device is electrically connected to the actuated device and configured to generate a notifying signal when the actuated device is actuated by the actuating component, so as to indicate information to facilitate a caregiver to determine whether the child safety seat is installed properly.

A state detection sensor includes a housing and a position sensing component mounted in the housing. The position sensing component is being configured to provide position data in response to detecting the presence or position of vehicle structure relative to the sensor. The state detection sensor also includes an analog input component mounted in the housing. The analog input component is configured to provide external analog sensor data in response to an analog signal received from an external analog sensor to which the analog input component can be operatively connected. The state detection sensor further includes a component configured to communicate the position data and the external analog sensor data via a serial bus.

An occupant protection device for a vehicle includes a collision predictor, a main airbag, a seat, a sub-airbag, and a deployment controller. The collision predictor is configured to predict a collision of the vehicle. The main airbag is configured to deploy toward an occupant from a front of the vehicle when a collision of the vehicle is predicted by the collision predictor. The seat allows the occupant to be seated, and is movable in a front-back direction of the vehicle. The sub-airbag is accommodated in an upper part of the seat, and configured to deploy downward from above the occupant. The deployment controller is configured to, when a collision of the vehicle is predicted by the collision predictor, cause the sub-airbag to deploy from the upper part of the seat and subsequently cause the main airbag to deploy.

A system and related method for monitoring an occupant within a vehicle using a plurality of convolutional neural networks includes a processor, a sensor having a field of view that includes at least a portion of the occupant, and a memory. The memory may include a feature map module, a key point head module, a part affinity field head module, and a seatbelt head module. The modules include instructions that cause the processor to generate a key point heat map indicating a probability that a pixel is a joint of a plurality of joints of the occupant, a part affinity field heat map indicating a pairwise relationship between at least two joints of the plurality of joints of the occupant, and a seatbelt heat map indicating a likelihood that a pixel of the input image is a seatbelt.