Patent ID: 7996133

Claim:
A method for increasing the time that a vehicle has to determine whether it should deploy one or more crash preparation devices in a potential collision situation with an object, said method comprising: determining that there is a collision threat between the vehicle and the object; calculating a collision risk value based on the collision threat; calculating a closing speed between the vehicle and the object; calculating a distance to collision between the vehicle and the object; calculating a time to collision between the vehicle and the object; determining whether the collision risk value is greater than a first predetermined threshold; deploying predetermined crash preparation devices and/or providing automatic vehicle braking if the collision risk value is greater than the first threshold; determining whether the collision risk value is greater than a second predetermined threshold if the collision risk value is not greater than the first threshold; determining whether the time to collision is less than at least one required time to collision if the collision risk value is greater than the second threshold, where the required time to collision is the time it takes to deploy a crash preparation device; calculating a time dilation deceleration value that that identifies how much deceleration the vehicle needs to increase the time to make a decision to deploy the one or more crash preparation devices if the time to collision is less than the at least one required time to collision; and automatically braking the vehicle at the time dilation deceleration value.