Vehicle occupant protection device

Abstract

The invention provides a vehicle occupant protection device, which can determine whether an occupant is protected by an air bag with high precision and appropriately switch the load of a force limiter. The vehicle occupant protection device includes: a seat belt device having a selectable force limiter that is configured to switch a force limiter load from a high load to a low load; an airbag device that deploys an airbag in front of the occupant; a movement direction detector that detects a direction in which a head region of the occupant will move relative to the vehicle at the time of frontal collision; an initial position detector that detects a position of the head region prior to the movement; and a control unit that makes a determination whether or not the head region will move outside of an area of protection by the airbag based on detection results of the movement direction detector and the initial position detector and, in a case in which the determination is affirmative, maintains the high load of the force limiter load.

Description

technical field [0001] The present disclosure relates to an occupant protection device for a vehicle. Background technique [0002] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2018-165994 describes an occupant protection device and a program for switching restraint loads according to the physique of the occupant by operating an airbag and a seat belt. In this prior art, when it is determined that the occupant's physique is greater than or equal to a predetermined physique and the acceleration in the vehicle width direction (vehicle lateral direction) is within a predetermined value, the on-board load is switched to a low load. Thereby, the load received by the occupant from the seat belt is reduced. On the other hand, when it is determined that the occupant's physique is equal to or greater than a predetermined physique and the acceleration in the lateral direction of the vehicle is equal to or greater than a predetermined value, the belt load is maintained at a high load. A...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, even if the acceleration in the left and right directions of the vehicle is the same, whether the occupant is protected by the airbag will change due to the difference in the acceleration in the front and rear directions of the vehicle and the position (initial position) of the occupant at the time of the frontal collision.

Therefore, in the above-mentioned prior art, there is a possibility that switching with load (force limiter load) cannot be properly performed.

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