Patent ID: 8157047

Claim:
In a motor vehicle having a portion defined as a crush zone which is designed to crush upon an accident involving the vehicle, a control system for controlling an occupant protection system comprising: an occupant protection system arranged to be actuated in the event of an accident involving the vehicle to protect an occupant in a front passenger seat of the vehicle from injury arising from the accident; a plurality of electronic sensors mounted at different locations on the vehicle, each sensor providing a measurement related to a state of the sensor or a measurement related to a state of the mounting location of the sensor; a processor operatively connected to said sensors and said occupant protection system and that diagnoses the state of the vehicle based on the measurements of said sensors, the diagnosis of the state of the vehicle including a diagnosis relating to potential actuation of said occupant protection system; and said processor further controlling said occupant protection system based at least in part on the diagnosed state of the vehicle, wherein at least a first one of said sensors is an electronic crash sensor mounted in the crush zone of the vehicle and at least a second one of said sensors is a sensor that measures occupancy of the front passenger seat of the vehicle, whereby said occupant protection system is controlled by said processor based in part on the occupancy of the front passenger seat of the vehicle as measured by said second sensor.