Patent ID: 7321817

Claim:
A safety system for a vehicle, said safety system comprising: a plurality of collision detection sensors coupled to the periphery of said vehicle and operable to generate at least one collision detection signal; and a controller coupled to said plurality of collision detection sensors and comprising (i) a collision contact location estimator for determining a collision type, which includes determining a collision severity and a collision contact location on said vehicle, in response to said at least one collision detection signal, and (ii) a coordinated device activation system for performing at least one countermeasure in response to said collision type; wherein said collision contact location estimator, in determining said collision severity, is operable to generate at least one collision severity signal corresponding to approximately K i V i (1−e −τt ), in which V i is voltage output from the i th collision detection sensor, K i is an adaptive gain, and τ is an adjustable filter time-constant.