Patent ID: 7295910

Claim:
A vehicle occupant discrimination apparatus for discriminating the kind of an occupant on a vehicle seat on the basis of the load applied to the vehicle seat, load measuring means for measuring the load applied to the vehicle seat; state detecting means for detecting the occupant state on the vehicle seat; and discriminating means for discriminating the kind of the occupant on the basis of a discrimination condition discriminating whether the occupant is an adult or a child and the result measured by the load measuring means, wherein the discriminating means discriminates the kind of the occupant on the basis of the discrimination condition differing in accordance with the result detected by the state detecting means; wherein when the state detecting means detects the presence of the occupant, the discriminating means discriminates the kind of the occupant on the basis of a first discrimination condition while discriminates the kind of the occupant on the basis of a second discrimination condition using a larger load than that in the first discrimination condition when the state detecting means detects no presence of the occupant.