Patent ID: 9685063
Date: 2017-06-20
CPC Classifications: B60N,G08B,H04W

Claim:
1. A car seat occupant detection system for a car seat installed in a vehicle, said system comprising: at least one harness sensor for detecting whether connectors of a car seat harness are connected; a weight sensor for detecting the weight of an occupant in the car seat; a controller in communication with said at least one harness sensor and said weight sensor; and a transceiver communicatively coupled to said controller and configured to selectively communicate with a driver communication device via a local wireless communication link and with a third party communication device via a wide area wireless communication link, wherein said controller is constructed to determine whether or not an occupant in the car seat has been left in the car seat by a driver of the vehicle who has left the vehicle based on detections of said at least one harness sensor and said weight sensor, and a status of communication between said transceiver and said driver communication device via the local wireless communication link, and wherein in a case where said controller determines that an occupant in the car seat has been left in the car seat by the driver who has left the vehicle, said controller instructs said transceiver to send a first alert message to said driver communication device via said local wireless communication link if said driver communication device is in communication range of said local wireless communication link or instructs said transceiver to send a second alert message to said third party communication device via said wide area wireless communication link if said driver communication device is not in communication range of said local wireless communication link, wherein said driver communication device includes at least one of a telephone, a portable computer, a personal digital assistant, and a pager, and wherein said transceiver includes a first transceiver and a second transceiver and said local wireless communication link includes a first and second local wireless communication links, and the first transceiver is configured to communicate with said driver communication device via said first local wireless communication link having a first communication range and said second transceiver is configured to communicate with said driver communication device via said second local wireless communication link having a second communication range that is larger than the first communication range.