Patent ID: 7424179

Claim:
A collision detecting apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: an optical fiber sensor including an optical fiber, which is interposed between a bumper reinforcement and a front bumper of the vehicle and extends in a left-right direction, and a light sending/receiving circuit for introducing light into the optical fiber and for detecting light from the optical fiber; a collision detecting circuit for extracting information relating to a collision load on the basis of a change in an output signal of the optical fiber sensor, that is caused by deformation of the optical fiber at a time of collision; a detection means for detecting an amount of state that is correlated with fluctuations in a previously stored zero point offset amount of output of the optical fiber sensor and is capable of being converted to a state of an electric signal; a storage means for storing relating data showing relation between the amount of state and the zero point offset amount; and an offset compensating means for compensating fluctuations in the zero point offset amount on the basis of the amount of state detected by the detection means and the relating data stored by the storage means.