The present disclosure relates to a safety assistance system, and particularly to the safety assistant system for the driverless car.
Taiwan Patent No. TW202294651 discloses an air bag deployment device for sensing the tilting situation of the car to instantly trigger the air bag deployment device when the car is accidentally falls down from the bridge or the mountain without confronting any rigid external items, e.g., the guardrails, to trigger the sensor of the deployment device.
Anyhow, such a system only provides an order to instantly activate the deployment device for all the air bags in the car in the aforementioned dangerous situation. An improvement for the deployment device is desired to precisely and efficiently recognize the respective and selective air bags in the car ready for deployment before the car is running for preparing any possible accident beforehand. In other words, only the selected air bags are activated to be deployed when the accident occurs, according to the passenger positions or information in the car acquired before the car is moving.
An object of the invention is to provide a safety assistance system for the driverless car with a microcontroller, a sensor for detecting the door position, a sensor for detecting the seat position, a sensor for detecting a collision, an air bag controller, and an air bag. The respective sensors are electrically connected to the microcontroller via corresponding circuits, and the air bag is connected to the microcontroller via the air bag controller, the sensor for detecting the seat position includes a plurality of angularity units respective to detect the seat back direction and the seat back angle position. The following steps are implemented. Step 1: starting the car to activate the microcontroller and detecting whether the doors are all closed; Step 2: activating the sensor for detecting the seat position/information including the seat direction and the adjusted seat back angle and sending corresponding data to the microcontroller; Step 3: adjusting/setting air bag controller according to the collected seat position/information efficiently; and Step 4: activating the selective air bags for deployment upon receiving a collision signal from the corresponding sensor according to the setting of the air bag controller.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the disclosure will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Referring to
Notably, the driverless car includes the front seats, the back seats and the armrest wherein the front cars may be rotated to face backward, and the seat front edge and the armrest are supplementally provided with the air bags for as to protect the corresponding passenger in the opposite seat. The system includes a microcontroller unit (MCU), the door detector, the seat ride detector, the seat detector, the collision detector, the air bag controller and the air bags. The detectors are electrically connected to the microcontroller, the air bags are electrically connected to the microcontroller via the air bag controller, the input end of the air bag controller is connected to the microcontroller, and the seat detector includes back angle detectors and seat rotation/turning detectors so as to decide the seat direction and the seat back angle.
Each seat is equipped with the seat detectors including the seat rid detector, the seat rotation detector and the seat back tilting angle detector. In the embodiment, the sensor detects whether there is a passenger seated thereon via a pressure detector. Understandably, the same system may also decide not to activate the air bag corresponding to the seats where no passengers are available. The seat back titling angle detector, which may be equipped around the rotation shaft of the seat back, provides tilting angle information. The seat rotation detector provides the information of seat facing. Therefore, the availability of the seats, the seat facing section, and the front seat back angle information commonly result in the combo information.
The microcontroller may adjust the setting according to such a combo information to decide which air bags are required to be activated during an accident. Understandably, the air bags intentionally designed for the specific seat may not be activate if such a seat has no passenger thereon. In addition, when the front seat is used to face backward, the air bag under the deck of the front control panel is not expected to be activated because it faces the forwardly tilted front seat back. Alternately, an additional air bag may be provided in a front region of the back seat so as to be deployed toward the front seat passenger who faces backwardly. In other words, the microcontroller receives and analyzes the signals derived from the sensors so as to adjust the setting of e corresponding air bag controller.
The air bags are electrically connected and activated by the air bag controller and controlled by the air bag control including the deployed air amount, the deployment range, the deployment angle and the deployment sequence. Upon collision, the air bags are activated via the setting of the air bag controller.
The method corresponding to the aforementioned safety assistance system includes the following steps: detecting whether the car doors are closed via a door detector; activating seat detectors to obtain data regarding the seat availability, the seat direction and the seat back tilting angle; adjusting a setting of the air bag controller according to the collected data; and activating the air bags according to the setting of the air bag controller upon receiving a collision signal from a collision sensor. Understandably, the data includes activation of the corresponding air bags, the deployment air amount, the deployment range, the deployment angle and the deployment sequence.
While a preferred embodiment in accordance with the present disclosure has been shown and described, equivalent modifications and changes known to persons skilled in the art according to the spirit of the present disclosure are considered within the scope of the present disclosure as described in the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
201811570122.9 | Dec 2018 | CN | national |