Patent ID: 11912306
Assignee: ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AG
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B | IPC B

Claim 18:
19. A method for helping to protect an occupant of a vehicle equipped with an automated driving (AD) system that operates the vehicle without an operator/driver, and a vehicle safety system (VSS) including one or more protection devices by detecting low impact crash events with the vehicle, the method comprising:
identifying possible low impact collision risks using AD sensors of the AD system;
determining a low impact collision resulting from the identified possible low impact collision using VSS sensors of the vehicle safety system; and
controlling the AD system to operate the vehicle in response to determining the low impact collision,
wherein identifying possible low impact collision risks using AD sensors comprises identifying possible low impact collision risks using AD cameras, and determining a low impact collision using VSS sensors comprises determining a low impact collision using at least one of front mid/high impact accelerometers, side mid/high impact accelerometers, ACU accelerometers, and satellite side impact pressure sensors (PSATs),
wherein determining a low impact collision using VSS sensors further comprises determining the low impact collision using pedestrian protection system (PPS) accelerometers and PPS tube pressure sensors,
and wherein the method further comprises identifying a vehicle zone for the low impact collision risk using AD cameras, identifying which of the front mid/high impact accelerometers, side mid/high impact accelerometers, ACU accelerometers, satellite side impact pressure sensors (PSATs), PPS accelerometers, and PPS tube pressure sensors are best suited to determine the occurrence of the low impact collision, and determining the low impact collision using the identified accelerometer(s) and/or pressure sensor(s).