Patent ID: 7783403

Claim:
A vehicle, comprising: a reactive system that controls the motion or travel direction of the vehicle; and an anticipatory sensor system that determines that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur unless a corrective action is taken based on data obtained prior to the impact and determining whether the potential impact requires activation of said reactive system; said anticipatory sensor system comprising at least one receiver that receives waves or energy and a pattern recognition system that analyzes the received waves or energy or data representative of the received waves or energy to determine that an impact is about to occur if corrective action is not taken and to determine whether the potential impact requires activation of said reactive system, said pattern recognition system being arranged to ascertain the identity of an object from which the waves or energy have been emitted, reflected or generated, the determination whether the impact requires activation of said reactive system being at least partially based on the identification of the object, said pattern recognition system comprising a processor embodying a pattern recognition algorithm which provides an output of one of a number of pre-determined identities of the object, said anticipatory sensor system further comprising at least one transmitter that transmits waves or energy away from the vehicle, said at least one receiver receiving waves or energy transmitted by said at least one transmitter which have been reflected from objects exterior of the vehicle, the received waves or energy being analyzed by said pattern recognition system to enable the determinations that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur and that the impact requires activation of said reactive system, said at least one transmitter transmitting infrared waves in an eye-safe range.