Patent ID: 7614690

Claim:
A headrest control apparatus, comprising: a rear state detection device that detects a following vehicle; a collision determination device that determines, based on the result of the detection by the rear state detection device, whether the possibility of collision between the following vehicle and a subject vehicle is high and outputs a start-up signal if the possibility of collision is high; a headrest drive mechanism that supports a headrest and drives the headrest relative to the subject vehicle in the longitudinal direction of the subject vehicle; a motor that produces a force for driving the headrest in the longitudinal direction; a head position detection device that detects the position of the head of an occupant relative to the headrest; and a headrest control portion that controls the longitudinal position of the headrest by activating the motor in accordance with the output of the collision determination device, wherein the headrest control portion executes a forward drive control that starts to drive the headrest forward by activating the motor in response to the start-up signal from the collision determination device and then finishes the forward drive of the headrest by stopping the motor when detecting, from the signals from the head position detection device, that the positional relation between the head of the occupant and the headrest has reached a predetermined positional relation, the headrest control portion, after the forward drive control, executes a hold control that holds the motor in a stopped state for a predetermined hold time, and continues the hold control by extending the predetermined hold time when receiving the start-up signal again from the collision determination device during the hold control, and the headrest control portion, after the hold control, executes a backward drive control that drives the headrest backward by activating the motor to rotate in a reverse direction.