Seat with seat sensor

Abstract: A seat with a seat sensor allowing easy manufacture is provided. Though the seat is provided with the seat sensor for detecting an occupant seated in the seat, the occupant never feel bad touch due to the presence of the sensor. A cavity 5 is formed upward from the bottom of a pad 1 and a sensor 2 is provided inside the cavity 5. A slab 6 is filled in the cavity 5 to close the cavity. The slab 6 is made of the same soft material as that of the pad 1. The cavity 5 is formed such that the opening thereof is narrow, thereby preventing the slab 6 from coming off.

Description: The present invention relates to a seat with a sheet-like sensor which detects whether an occupant is seated in the seat. A sensor for preventing malfunction of a passenger air bag is known, which is provided on the upper surface of a vehicle seat cushion. Figs. 3 and 4 are sectional views showing conventional examples each of which comprises a pad 1' and a sensor 2' bonded on the pad 1'. For eliminating bad touch due to the presence of the sensor, a slab 3 of about 5 mm in thickness is bonded to cover the sensor 2' as shown in Fig. 3 or a frame laminate 4 of 5 mm in thickness is provided as shown in Fig. 4. Such a conventional seat in which the sensor 2' is bonded and the slab 3 or the frame laminate 4 is provided to cover the sensor 2' has disadvantages in that many laminating steps are required and cost is increased due to the laminating. EP 0 785 101 describes a seat comprising a soft pad and a pressure sensitive sheet-like sensor disposed inside the pad. It is an aim of the present invention to solve the above disadvantages and to provide a seat with a seat sensor which allows easy manufacture and substantially completely eliminate the bad touch due to the presence of the sensor. A seat with a seat sensor of the present invention comprises a soft pad and a pressure sensitive sheet-like sensor disposed inside the pad for detecting a human body seated on the pad wherein the pad is provided with a slit for the sensor formed from a side (any one of front, rear, right, and left sides) toward the center of the pad and the sensor is inserted into the slit. Figs. 1a and 1b are sectional views showing a seat with a seat sensor according to an embodiment; Fig. 2 is a structural view of a seat with a seat sensor according to another embodiment; Fig. 3 is a sectional view showing a conventional example; Fig. 4 is a sectional view showing another conventional example. Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the attached drawings. Fig. 1a is a sectional view of a seat with a seat sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention and Fig. 1b is an exploded view thereof. In this embodiment, the pad 1 is provided with a slit 7 extending forward from the rear end, into which the sensor 2 is inserted. In this case, the slit 7 is provided in a substantially horizontal direction so that the sensor 2 never comes off the slit 7 even without closing the opening of the slit 7. However, a sheet-like slab may be pressed into the slit 7 to prevent the sensor 2 from coming off. In the embodiment shown in Figs. 1a and 1b, the pad 1 may be entirely wrapped with a cover 8 as shown in Fig. 2. According to the present invention, examples of material of the pad 1 include polyurethane foam and thermoplastics resin fibers (e.g. polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene), just like the conventional example. Examples of material of the cover 8 shown in Fig. 2 include leather, polyvinyl chloride, moquette, and the like. Employed as the sensor 2 may be a pressure sensitive sensor of which the electrical resistance is changed by pressure or a strain gage, just like the conventional example. Though the slit 7 is formed to extend forward from the rear end of the pad 1 in the embodiment shown in Figs. 1a and 1b, the slit 7 may be formed to extend from the front end or side toward the center of the pad 1 in case that the cover 8 wraps the pad 1 as shown in Fig. 2. As mentioned above, in the seat with the seat sensor according to the present invention, the sensor is disposed inside the pad so that the occupant never feel bad touch even when the occupant sits down on the pad above the sensor. This structure can eliminate the necessity of providing a slab or a laminate on the top of the pad, thereby facilitating the manufacture of the seat with seat sensor and thus extremely reducing the manufacturing cost.

Claims: A seat with a seat sensor comprising a soft pad (1) and a pressure sensitive sheet-like sensor (2) disposed inside the pad for detecting a human body seated on said pad, characterised in that said pad is provided with a slit (7) for said sensor formed from a side toward the center of said pad and said sensor is inserted into the slit. A seat with a seat sensor as claimed in claim 1, wherein said pad is entirely wrapped with a cover (8).

Inventors: HIRATA YUTAKA, HIRATA, YUTAKA, Hirata, Yutaka, Yokohama Plant Bridgestone Corp.
Applicants: BRIDGESTONE CORP, BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION
Application year: 1998
Main classification: B60N2
IPC codes: B60R21, A47C7, B60N2