Patent ID: 9533643
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: B60N,B60R

Claim:
1. An apparatus for vehicle occupant protection from lower spine injuries in unintentional roadway departure, comprising: at least one of a remote sensor and a vehicle dynamics sensor, the remote sensor when present arranged to monitor a road traveled by a vehicle hosting the apparatus and to at least detect edges of the road and output road edge signals representative thereof, and the vehicle dynamics sensor when present arranged to determine one or more vehicle dynamics parameters of the host vehicle and output vehicle dynamics signals representative thereof; a processing device arranged to process at least one of the road edge signals and the vehicle dynamics signals to determine whether the host vehicle is about to leave the road and to output an off-road signal in response thereto; a vehicle seat with a seat cushion mounted on a seat frame, the height of which is adjustable through a motor operated height adjustment device; and a triggering device arranged to trigger operation of the motor operated height adjustment device to move the seat cushion towards a crash-position in response to the off-road signal indicating that the host vehicle is about to leave the road, the crash-position comprising a rear end of the seat cushion at least partially raised from a floor of the vehicle so that a deformation distance between the vehicle floor and the seat cushion of the vehicle seat is available in case of a floor impact accident for vehicle occupant protection from lower spine injuries.