Smart Restraints
Smart restraints
Enhancing Individualized Safety Through Advanced Occupant Sensing Technology
Integrating Advanced Sensing for Personalized Safety
We are revolutionizing the realm of passive safety systems. Our cutting-edge expertise in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and sensor technology sets us apart, allowing us to reimagine the future of individualized safety in vehicles. Our mission is to create an intelligent synergy between occupants and safety mechanisms, ensuring protection tailored to each individual's unique characteristics and position.
Smart Restraint Systems: Adapting to Occupants
One of our major initiatives involves enhancing passive safety actuators with the ability to intuitively understand the vehicle's interior and its occupants. Our technologies are designed to significantly improve individual safety by refining the restraint system. We employ occupant monitoring technologies that accurately gauge factors like weight and height, integrating this data with smart restraint control algorithms. This integration enables the restraint actuators, including seat belts and airbags, to respond more intelligently and individually to each occupant and their specific scenario. For instance, we tailor the restraint system's stiffness based on the occupant's weight and proximity to the instrument panel, ensuring optimal protection and comfort.
Occupant Pose Detection for Enhanced Safety
Another key application of our technology is in detecting and responding to the occupant's pose. Conventional restraint systems are most effective when occupants are in a standard, nominal position. Our advanced pose detection systems can identify when an occupant is out of this nominal position, such as leaning forward, sideways, or having feet on the dashboard. In normal driving scenarios, our system can issue warnings to encourage the occupant to return to a safer position. In critical situations, like an imminent crash, advanced retractor technology can actively reposition the occupant using controlled forces, informed by reliable data on the occupant's pose and characteristics.
Intelligent Airbag Suppression Based on Occupant Position
Additionally, our technology plays a crucial role in airbag deployment. We recognize that airbags, while lifesaving, can pose risks if deployed when an occupant is too close to the deployment point. Our systems can detect an occupant's pose and their distance from the airbag. This information along with assessing the crash severity allows for dynamic automatic suppression of the airbag, ensuring deployment occurs only when it is effective and safe.
Future-Ready: Adapting to Innovative Seating Concepts
Looking ahead, we are preparing for the introduction of new seating concepts, like ZeroG seats, which offer unique comfort in various reclined positions. Our advanced sensing technologies are evolving to accommodate these innovations. By continuously analyzing occupant pose and characteristics, we can adapt elements like the D-Ring position, belt force, and airbag stages, ensuring optimal safety regardless of the seating design.
We are committed to pioneering a future where vehicle safety systems are not just reactive but intelligently proactive, adapting to every occupant's needs. Join us as we drive towards a safer, more personalized automotive experience.
Why adaptive restraints?
Cars are getting smarter! Not only do they learn to drive on their own by using sensors and artificial intelligence, they also start to understand the interior and its occupants. This is an opportunity to reduce fatalities due to accidents, contributing to EU vision zero – no road accident fatalities.
Restraint systems today are designed mostly for an average of population and interior scenarios (i.e. seating position). Restraint systems have the capability to do much more and increase safety for individual proportions and behaviours. When understanding what person (size, height, age, gender) is sitting in the car and what position he or she has (i.e. leaned back) the restraint system can adapt parameters of airbags, seatbelts or seat and interact with automated driving features to optimize individual protection in case of a crash. Relevance of this is increasing with more freedoms in higher automated cars.
Occupant body perception is a key contributor to such optimized restraint systems, delivering information for the right restraint strategy.
What is occupant monitoring?
Occupant monitoring is providing information about any occupant in the car. While already in the past there have been different sensor technologies for this (i.e. weight sensors) a large focus today is on getting information from cameras by means of computer vision and artificial intelligence. Cameras are being used to extract information like weight, height, body pose, gender, age, emotion, health status and more.
How does it work?
In the context of adaptive restraints information from an occupant monitoring system are used to alter the parameters of the restraint system to increase it’s individualized performance. For example the stiffness and firing time of an airbag may be altered based on occupant height, weight and distance to the airbag.
This way the airbag can be as soft as possible to catch the occupant but as hard as necessary to protect him or her. There are various use cases and restraint strategies based on different occupant information. If you would like to discuss more in detail please contact us.