A seatbelt system includes a take-up device configured to take up a seatbelt, and an electronic control unit configured to, when any one of first and second conditions is satisfied, cause a motor to take up the seatbelt. In the first condition, after occurrence of a collision whose physical quantity detected by a detector configured to detect the physical quantity associated with a magnitude of the collision is less than or equal to a first threshold, the physical quantity decreases to less than or equal to a second threshold. In the second condition, after occurrence, of a collision whose physical quantity is less than or equal to the first threshold, a first predetermined time elapses, which is estimated to be equivalent to a decrease in the physical quantity to less than or equal to the second threshold.

A restraining system for restraining an occupant of a vehicle, the system including: an occupant supporting device for supporting the occupant, the occupant supporting device has a longitudinal direction along which an occupant is intended to be positioned; a blanket including at least one restraint belt each including a first end and a second end attachable to attachment members arranged on either side of the occupant supporting device such that each restraint belt extend in a transverse direction across the occupant supporting device, the attachment members are movable such that the position of each restraint belt is adjustable in the longitudinal direction, an activation control unit configured to receive a signal indicative of a vehicle collision, and in response to the received signal control a pre-tension device to increase the tension in the at least one restraint belt.

An apparatus comprising a transceiver, a processor and a memory. The transceiver may be configured to send/receive data messages to/from a plurality of vehicles. The processor may be configured to execute instructions. The memory may be configured to store instructions that, when executed, perform the steps of (A) generating signal distance calculations between the apparatus and at least three of the vehicles using the data messages, (B) calculating a plurality of potential positions of the vehicles using the signal distance calculations, (C) performing a scaling operation on the plurality potential positions of the vehicles to determine relative positions of the vehicles on a coordinate system, (D) implementing a procrusting procedure on the coordinate system to generate a corrected coordinate system and (F) determining changes of the relative positions using the corrected coordinate system.

A position estimation unit (2) comprising a first transceiver device (3) and a processing unit (10) that is arranged to repeatedly calculate time-of-flight (TOF) for radio signals (x.sub.1, x.sub.2, x.sub.3, x.sub.4, x.sub.5, x.sub.6) sent pair-wise between two transceivers among the first transceiver device (3) and at least two other transceiver devices (7, 8, 9); calculate possible positions for the transceiver devices (3, 7, 8, 9), which results in possible positions for each transceiver device (3, 7, 8, 9); and perform Multidimensional scaling (MDS) calculation in order to obtain relative positions of the transceiver devices (3, 7, 8, 9) in a present coordinate system. After two initial MDS calculations, between every two consecutive MDS calculations, the processing unit (10) is arranged to repeatedly perform a processing procedure comprising translation, scaling and rotation of present coordinate system such that a corrected present coordinate system is acquired. The processing procedure is arranged to determine the corrected present coordinate system such that a smallest change for the relative positions of the transceiver devices (3, 7, 8, 9) between the consecutive MDS calculations is obtained.

An apparatus comprising a transceiver, an antenna and a processor. The transceiver may be configured to send/receive data messages to/from a plurality of vehicles. The antenna may be configured to receive signals from GNSS satellites. The processor may be configured to (i) determine a first region based on relative coordinates calculated using the data messages, (ii) determine a second region calculated using the signals received from the GNSS satellites, (iii) determine whether a pre-determined amount of the first region to the second region overlap and (iv) increase a confidence level of a positional accuracy of the plurality of vehicles if the pre-determined amount of the first region and the second region overlap. One of the vehicles implements one or more automatic responses based on the confidence level of the positional accuracy.

An apparatus comprising a processor and a transceiver. The processor may (i) receive messages from a plurality of vehicles and (ii) determine relative coordinates of the vehicles based on the messages. The transceiver may (i) communicate the messages using a first channel in a first range and (ii) communicate short messages using a second channel in a second range. Communicating using the second channel may consume more power than communicating using the first channel. The messages may be sent from the transceiver to a cluster head within the first range. The short messages may communicate less data than the messages. The short messages may be sent directly to a target vehicle outside of the first range to determine an associated cluster head for the target vehicle. The messages may be sent to the target vehicle from the associated cluster head via the cluster head within the first range.

An apparatus comprising a transceiver module and a processor. The transceiver may be configured to send/receive data messages to/from a plurality of vehicles. The processor may be configured to (i) determine a plurality of selected vehicles from the plurality of vehicles based on a selection criteria and (ii) calculate relative coordinates of the plurality of vehicles based on the data messages from the selected vehicles. The selection criteria may comprise determining (i) a target vehicle and (ii) at least two complementary vehicles. A predicted trajectory of the target vehicle may cross paths with a predicted trajectory of the apparatus. The complementary vehicles may be selected based on (i) an arrangement of the plurality of vehicles and (ii) speeds of the plurality of vehicles.

An occupant protection device includes: a collision prediction unit configured to predict a collision state including a collision direction in a vehicle; a seat direction detection unit configured to detect a direction of a seat that is rotatable around a vertical axis of the vehicle with respect to the vehicle; a driving unit configured to adjust a degree of tension of a seatbelt; and a control unit configured to control the driving unit in accordance with the collision direction with respect to the vehicle predicted by the collision prediction unit and the direction of the seat with respect to the vehicle detected by the seat direction detection unit to change the degree of tension of the seatbelt.

The disclosure relates to a method for triggering an occupant protection device in a vehicle with a parking brake, wherein for the case in which a deceleration of the vehicle is demanded by operating the parking brake while travelling, the occupant protection device is triggered automatically and displaced from an initial position into a protective position.

A motor vehicle has a passenger compartment for at least one vehicle user and has at least one sensor device for detecting a location of the vehicle user in the passenger compartment. At least one retaining device is used to fix the vehicle user in his/her location. A control device is provided to activate the at least one retaining device according to a signal of at least one impact sensor of the motor vehicle. The at least one retaining device is designed to fix the vehicle user in a location in the passenger compartment different from a vehicle seat of the motor vehicle. A method operates such a motor vehicle.