Patent ID: 7668991

Claim:
A system for weight measurement in a vehicle seat, comprising: a plurality of connecting elements; a communications system; and an address assignment arrangement; wherein, for assignment of an address to one of the plurality of connecting elements: the system is configured such that: in a step (a), at least one bit of a potential serial number is sent across the communications system to all of the plurality of connecting elements, each of a subset of the plurality of connecting elements having a respective serial number that includes a portion that matches the at least one bit of the potential serial number; responsively, in a step (b), the subset of the immediately preceding step (a) responds to the at least one bit, others of the connecting elements not responding; and in a step (c), the steps (a) and (b) are repeated; for each repeated step (a), the at least one bit includes a range of bits in addition to or alternate to the at least one bit that was sent in the immediately preceding step (a), the subset of the connecting elements being different for different ones of the repeated steps (a); the repetition of steps (a) and (b) is performed until the subset of the last performed step (b) includes only the one of the plurality of connecting elements; the address assignment arrangement is configured to assign to the one of the plurality of connecting elements an address based on the at least one bit sent in the last step (a) performed for the assignment of the address; and at least in the initial performance of step (a), the at least one bit includes less than the entirety of the potential serial number.