A motor vehicle includes a vehicle body, a drive motor, and a water tank delimited by walls. At least one airbag module includes a gas generator and an airbag configured to deploy in the area of an exterior of the motor vehicle for the protection of pedestrians or the like. The airbag module is fastened above the wall of the water tank. A device for lifting a front hood from a closed initial position into an accident position, which is partially open in the area of the front windscreen.

An outside protection apparatus for a vehicle includes an outside airbag device. The outside airbag device includes a bag body expandable to be overlaid on an outer surface of a body of the vehicle, and an inflator configured to expand the bag body. The bag body includes an irregularity formation member at an inner surface of the bag body, and a tether coupled to the irregularity formation member to be bridged in an inner portion of the bag body in a state in which the bag body is expanded. The irregularity formation member forms a projection at a surface of the bag body in response to tension acting on the tether in the state in which the bag body is expanded.

An apparatus and method are disclosed for vehicle occupant protection in large animal collisions. Objects forward of the host vehicle are monitored using at least one forward looking remote sensor and object signals output. A velocity of the host vehicle is determined and velocity signals output. The object signals and the velocity signals are processed to determine whether the host vehicle unavoidably will suffer a collision with a large animal while traveling at or above a threshold velocity and a collision signal is output. Operation of a motor operated height adjustment device, an inclination adjustment device and/or a longitudinal position adjustment device of a vehicle seat is triggered to move a seat cushion and a backrest thereof away from a leading edge of a roof of the host vehicle in response to the collision signal.

Systems and methods are provided for dynamically protecting transportable articles in vehicles. A system for dynamically protecting a transportable article in a vehicle may include one or more processors and non-volatile memory storing instructions. The instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to access sensed data representative of at least one of a characteristic or a trait of a transportable article in a vehicle, determine based on the data the at least one of the characteristic or the trait of the transportable article, select one or more article protection components based on the determined at least one of the characteristic or the trait of the transportable article, and deploy the selected one or more article protection components to protect the transportable article.

A pedestrian protection apparatus includes: an active sensor configured to sense a dynamic behavior of a vehicle; a passive sensor configured to sense a collision of the vehicle; and a pedestrian protection module configured to: predict a possibility of a pedestrian collision in response to active information received from the active sensor, the pedestrian collision being a collision of the vehicle that involves a pedestrian; adjust a threshold value for sensing the collision of the vehicle determined by passive information received from the passive sensor in response to predicting the possibility of the pedestrian collision; and deploy a protection module in response to determining the pedestrian collision using the adjusted threshold value and the passive information received from the passive sensor.

According to one aspect, an overall airbag system of an autonomous vehicle uses a combination of sensors to deploy one or more external airbags in advance of a collision or as a collision occurs, for the purpose of protecting vulnerable persons. By using sensor data, combined with perception and prediction algorithms, an autonomous driving system may deploy a substantially optimal combination of external airbags for a given the size of a vulnerable person, vehicle speed, and/or collision timing. In addition to cushioning impact during a collision, the deployment of multiple external airbags may also control kinematics of vulnerable persons, as for example by addressing brain injuries in pedestrians due to rotational kinematics.

A vehicle, comprising a monitoring unit configured to monitor a surrounding environment of a vehicle body, a detection unit configured to detect an impact applied onto the vehicle body, a plurality of impact absorption units, and an operation control unit configured to selectively operate the plurality of impact absorption units, based on at least one of a monitoring result from the monitoring unit and a detection result from the detection unit.

A vehicle collision determination system includes an acceleration sensor fixedly positioned to a front end of the vehicle and configured to measure acceleration at a fixed position, a detector configured to detect whether the vehicle collides using the acceleration measured by the acceleration sensor, a metrics setting unit configured to set at least one metric using the acceleration measured by the acceleration sensor when the detector detects collision of the vehicle, and a determiner configured to determine whether an object that has collided with the vehicle is a pedestrian using the at least one metric set by the metrics setting unit.

Systems and methods are provided for dynamically protecting transportable articles in vehicles. A system for dynamically protecting a transportable article in a vehicle may include one or more processors and non-volatile memory storing instructions. The instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to determine at least one of a characteristic or a trait of the transportable article; detect, based on sensed data, an emergency condition; select one or more article protection components based on (i) the at least one of the characteristic or the trait of the transportable article, and (ii) the detected emergency condition; and in response to detecting the emergency condition, deploy the selected one or more article protection components to protect the transportable article.

A vehicle collision determination system includes an acceleration sensor fixedly positioned to a front end of the vehicle and configured to measure acceleration at a fixed position, a detector configured to detect whether the vehicle collides using the acceleration measured by the acceleration sensor, a metrics setting unit configured to set at least one metric using the acceleration measured by the acceleration sensor when the detector detects collision of the vehicle, and a determiner configured to determine whether an object that has collided with the vehicle is a pedestrian using the at least one metric set by the metrics setting unit.