Patent ID: 7836996

Claim:
A pedestrian protection system mounted in a front portion of a vehicle and structured to allow disposing a restraint body that is actuated at the time of collision of a pedestrian with the vehicle for protectably receiving in a manner corresponding to the pedestrian moving to a front upper side of the vehicle and the pedestrian moving to a front lower side of the vehicle, respectively, so as to be in a receiving state, comprising: a contact body that is projected forward from an initial position where the contact body is stored in a front face of the vehicle, for contacting the pedestrian, at the time of actuation; a forward movement holding mechanism that makes the contact body projectable forward at the time of actuation, for holding the contact body from a rear side thereof; a turn holding mechanism for holding a rear portion of the forward movement holding mechanism so as to rotate the forward movement holding mechanism to one side of upward or downward, at the time of contact of the forwardly moved contact body with the pedestrian, in response to a magnitude of pressing force toward an upper portion or toward a lower portion of the contact body; a collision predicting sensor disposed on the vehicle, for predicting the collision of the pedestrian with the vehicle; a turn sensor for detecting an upward or downward turn of the forward movement holding mechanism; and a controller for controlling actuation of the forward movement holding mechanism and the restraint body based on signals from the collision predicting sensor and the turn sensor, wherein when having predicted the collision of the pedestrian with the vehicle based on a signal from the collision predicting sensor, the controller actuates the forward movement holding mechanism to cause a forward movement of the contact body, and based on a signal from the turn sensor when the forward movement holding mechanism carries out an upward rotation or a downward rotation at the time of contact of the forwardly moved contact body with the pedestrian, the controller controls actuation of the restraint body so as to correspond to the pedestrian moving to a front upper side of the vehicle and the pedestrian moving to a front lower side of the vehicle.