JPH09240418A - Air bag controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the reliability of the development control of a side air bag against side clashing when any wiring line is broken and noises are superposed by providing a plurality of wiring lines for connecting a center unit and a side clashing sensor. SOLUTION: A front clashing sensor for detecting front side clashing (front clashing) is incorporated, a center unit 1 is installed roughly in the center of a vehicle 2 and side clashing sensors 3R and 3L and a side air bag are installed in the side part of the vehicle 2. The side clashing sensors 3R and 3L and the center unit 1 are connected respectively by two wiring lines 4F wound on the front side of the vehicle 2 and wirings 4R wound on the rear side thereof. The center unit 1 takes in signals from the side clashing sensors 3R and 3L by the wiring lines 4F and 4R, determined the success of an air bag development by AND arithmetic processing and when an air bag development is determined to be necessary, a development command is issued to the side air bag.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an airbag control device for controlling the deployment of a side airbag which is deployed in a side collision.

[0002]

In recent years, not only is the airbag inflated to protect the occupant from a frontal collision, but also the side airbag is inflated to protect the occupant from a side collision. To ensure this, the center unit installed in the center of the vehicle detects a frontal collision to deploy the front airbag and receives the detection signal of the side impact sensor installed on the side of the vehicle to detect the side collision. There has been proposed an airbag control device configured to also control the deployment of the airbag.

According to the present invention, in such an air bag control device, by connecting a plurality of wirings between the center unit and the side impact sensor, the noise resistance is improved and a highly reliable operation is possible. The purpose is to do.

[0004]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a communication unit connects a center unit installed in a central part of a vehicle to a side collision sensor installed in a side part of the vehicle. In an airbag control device that controls the deployment of a side airbag in a center unit when a side collision sensor detects a side collision, a plurality of wiring lines are connected between the center unit and the side collision sensor.

In the airbag control device according to the first aspect of the present invention, by transmitting the signal of the side collision sensor to the center unit through a plurality of wirings, a disconnection occurs in any wiring or noise is superimposed. Even if the other wiring is used, the correct side collision sensor signal is sent to improve the reliability of the airbag deployment control against a side collision.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the airbag control device according to the first aspect, a plurality of wirings are provided around a front portion of the vehicle and a wiring around a rear portion of the vehicle.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the airbag control device according to the first or second aspect, the signal A from the side impact sensor sent through a plurality of wires in the center unit is A.
The side collision is determined by the ND logic.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the airbag control device according to the first or second aspect, in the center unit, a signal O from the side impact sensor sent through a plurality of wires is transmitted.
A side collision is determined by the R logic.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the airbag control device according to the fourth aspect, the center unit is 2 in OR logic.
The side airbag is inflated when it is determined that a side collision has occurred by continuous sampling.

[0010]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, by transmitting the signal of the side impact sensor to the center unit through a plurality of wirings, disconnection may occur in one of the wirings or noise may be superimposed. Also, the signal of the correct side collision sensor can be sent by another wiring, and the reliability of airbag deployment control against a side collision can be improved.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to improve the reliability of the signal of the side collision sensor by preventing the same noise from being picked up by turning the plurality of wirings to the whole and the rear part of the vehicle. .

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the side collision is judged by AND logic of the signals sent from the side collision sensor to the center unit through the plurality of wirings, so that noise is applied to one of the wirings. However, if noise is not present on the other wiring, it is not judged that a side collision has occurred, and the reliability of the judgment of the side collision can be improved.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the side collision is judged by the OR logic of the signals sent from the side collision sensor to the center unit through a plurality of wirings, so that any wiring is disconnected or connected. Even if a defect has occurred, it is possible to accurately determine the occurrence of a side collision.

According to the fifth aspect of the invention, the side collision is judged by the OR logic of the signals sent from the side collision sensor to the center unit through the plurality of wirings, and the side collision is further sampled twice. By officially determining that a side collision has occurred when it is determined that even if there is a disconnection or connection failure in any of the wiring, sound wiring can be used to determine the side collision more accurately. Can be done.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a wiring state according to a first embodiment of the present invention, in which a front collision sensor (not shown) for detecting a front collision (front collision) is built in, and a front airbag and a side airbag are respectively provided. The center unit 1 that executes the process of determining whether or not the deployment is necessary is installed in the substantially central portion of the vehicle 2, and the side unit of the vehicle 2 is deployed when a side collision occurs and a side collision sensor that detects a side collision. Side airbags are installed. Each of the side collision sensors 3R and 3L and the center unit 1 are connected to each other by two wires, that is, a wire 4F running around the front part of the vehicle 2 and a wire 4R running around the rear part of the vehicle 2.

The wiring pattern is not particularly limited, and as shown in FIG. 2, each of the center unit 1 and the side impact sensors 3R and 3L has two wirings, that is, a short wiring 4C and a long wiring 4F. It may be configured to connect between and, and one may be wired so as to crawl on any horizontal plane, and the other may be wired so as to crawl on any vertical plane. Can be less susceptible to the noise of.

The functional configuration of the center unit 1 is shown in FIG.
The signal from the left and right side impact sensors 3L, 3R is taken in by the wirings 4F, 4R and is A / D converted.
The air bag deployment is performed by the D converters 5L and 5R and the AND type arithmetic processing as shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4 for the two systems of digital signals A / D converted by the A / D converters 5L and 5R. An arithmetic circuit 7 for determining whether or not it is necessary is provided, and when the arithmetic circuit 7 determines that airbag deployment is necessary, a deployment command is output to the side airbags 8L, 8R.

The arithmetic circuit 7 inputs the signal of the front collision sensor 10 incorporated in the center unit 1 through the A / D converter 11 in order to control the expansion of the front collision airbag 9 even in the case of a front collision. However, it is also equipped with a function to determine whether or not to deploy an airbag.

Next, the operation of the airbag control device having the above construction will be described. Considering the communication between the left side collision sensor 3L and the center unit 1, FIG.
As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, the signal from the side collision sensor 3L is a first signal line (here, referred to as a front wiring 4F) and a second signal line (also referred to as a rear wiring 4R).
Received individually by and, A / D converted and D1, D in the register
2 (steps S1 and S2), and signals D1 and D
It is determined whether or not 2 match (step S3).

If a match is found here, the one signal D1
Is judged to be coincident with the code DFire indicating the necessity of expanding the airbag (step S4), and if it is judged that the side airbag 8L needs to be expanded, the expansion command is given to the side airbag 8L to be expanded. (Step S5). However, the two wires 4 in step S3
If the signals of the side collision sensor 3L do not match between F and 4R, it is considered that noise is superimposed on either of them, and the airbag deployment is not determined.

In this way, even if noise is superimposed on either of the wirings 4F and 4R, the signal is eliminated, the reliability of the collision occurrence determination is enhanced, and the erroneous deployment operation of the airbag is prevented.

Since the same operation is performed on the detection signal of the right side collision sensor 3R, the description thereof will be omitted.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. The feature of the second embodiment is that the functional configuration of the center unit 1 is replaced by the OR circuit shown in FIG. 6 instead of the arithmetic circuit 7 shown in FIG.
The point is that an arithmetic circuit 70 for performing a specific arithmetic process is provided.

Therefore, in the second embodiment, as shown in the flow chart of FIG. 6, the center unit 1 is routed from the left side impact sensor 3L through the wirings 4F and 4R.
When an acceleration detection signal is input to, the A / D converter 5L performs A / D conversion to input two systems of digital acceleration detection signals D1 and D2 to the arithmetic circuit 70 (steps S11 and S12), and the signal D1 or D2 is input. Is in agreement with the code DFire indicating that the airbag should be deployed (steps S13 and S14), a deployment command is given to the left side airbag 8L to deploy it (step S15).

According to the second embodiment, by using a plurality of signal wirings, even if there is a disconnection or a connection failure in any wiring, the collision can be reliably detected and the airbag can be detected. Deployment decisions can be made and reliability and safety can be improved.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The third embodiment is the arithmetic circuit 70 of the center unit 1 in the second embodiment.
This is a further improvement of the arithmetic processing function of. That is, in the second embodiment, the arithmetic circuit 70 OR-processes the signals from each of the side collision sensors 3L and 3R input through the two wirings, and the signal input through either wiring is the air signal. In the third embodiment, the signal input through any one of the wirings indicates that the airbag should be deployed. When it is, the sampling is repeated again (this sampling cycle is sufficiently shorter than the time required to deploy the airbag, and the airbag deployment is not delayed). It is characterized in that the corresponding side airbag 8L or 8R is deployed when input.

FIG. 7 shows the procedure of the airbag deployment process of the arithmetic circuit 70. Considering the left side collision sensor 3L, first, counter = 0 is set (step S
21) The first sampling is started, and the signals D1 and D2 sent from the side collision sensor 3L through the front and rear wirings 4F and 4R are A / D converted and stored (step S1).
1, S12).

Next, the magnitudes of these signals D1 and D2 are compared with the code DFire indicating the necessity of airbag deployment (steps S13 and S14), and the signal D1 input through one of the front and rear wirings 4F and 4R. Or D2 is DFi
If it matches re, the counter is set to 1 (steps S22 and S23), the process returns to step S11, and the second sampling is performed (steps S11 and S12).

Even in the second sampling, if the signal D1 or D2 coincides with DFire, it is judged that the corresponding left side airbag 8L needs to be expanded (steps S13, S14, S22), and the side airbag 8L is detected. A deployment command is output for deployment (step S1)
5).

As described above, according to the third embodiment, the same one side impact sensor is connected to the two signal lines 4F,
4R is routed to the center unit 1, and when there is noise on either side, it will not be erroneously determined that a side collision has occurred. When the signal waveforms of the two system signal lines 4F and 4R are different, Sampling is performed to see if a similar waveform appears. If the same waveform is obtained in the second sampling, the airbag is expanded using the same detection signal as the collision detection signal, and the waveform is lowered in the second sampling. For example, it is possible to prevent the airbag from being inflated because it is merely noise, and it is possible to detect a collision with the sound wire even if there is a wire disconnection or connection failure. Improved and reliable operation becomes possible.

In any of these embodiments, the wiring may be routed to two systems of the front part and the rear part of the vehicle 2 as shown in FIG. 1, or short as shown in FIG. It is also possible to connect the center unit 1 and each of the side collision sensors 3R and 3L with two wirings, each of which is a wiring 4C of a path and a wiring 4F of a long path, and one of which is laid on an arbitrary horizontal plane. It is also possible to wire the other so as to crawl in an arbitrary vertical plane.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a wiring layout according to a first embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing another example of the wiring layout in the above embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a center unit in the above embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an airbag deployment determination procedure of the arithmetic circuit according to the above embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a center unit according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an airbag deployment determination procedure of the arithmetic circuit according to the above embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing an airbag deployment determination procedure of the arithmetic circuit according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Center Unit 2 Vehicle 3L, 3R Side Impact Sensor 4F, 4R, 4C Wiring 5R, 5L A / D Converter 7 Arithmetic Circuit 8L, 8R Side Airbag 9 Front Airbag 10 Front Impact Sensor 11 A / D Converter 70 Arithmetic circuit

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A center unit installed in a central portion of a vehicle is connected to a side collision sensor installed in a side portion of the vehicle by a communication line, and the side collision sensor is used to prevent a side collision. An airbag control device for controlling the deployment of a side airbag in the center unit when detected, wherein a plurality of wires connecting the center unit and the side impact sensor are provided. 2. The airbag control device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of wires are a wire that goes around a front portion of the vehicle and a wire that goes around a rear portion of the vehicle. 3. The air according to claim 1, wherein the center unit determines a side collision by AND logic of a signal from the side collision sensor sent through the plurality of wires. Bag control device. 4. The air according to claim 1, wherein the center unit determines a side collision by OR logic of a signal from the side collision sensor sent through the plurality of wires. Bag control device. 5. The airbag control device according to claim 4, wherein the center airbag unit deploys the side airbag when the occurrence of a lateral collision is determined by sampling the OR logic twice in succession.