Patent ID: 7954359

Claim:
A sensing system to collect information pertaining to an impact on an object, wherein said collected information is transferred from said sensing system over a communication link with limited capacity, said system comprising: a plurality of sensors to collect information associated with an impact on an object, wherein said plurality of sensors includes an impact sensor to detect one or more locations on said object receiving said impact and at least one damage sensor to measure information pertaining to damage sustained by said object from said impact, and wherein each sensor is assigned a corresponding priority level for transference of information collected by that sensor from said sensing system over a common communication link with limited capacity; and a processing unit to receive and process collected information from said sensors and to allocate said limited capacity of said communication link to said received information in accordance with said priority level of an associated sensor providing said information to transfer said collected information from said sensing system over said communication link, wherein said processing unit allocates said limited capacity of said communication link to collected information available from said impact sensor prior to allocation of that capacity to collected information available from said at least one damage sensor until a quantity of impact sensor information is transferred sufficient to identify an impact location.