Patent ID: 8924088

Claim:
A collision detection apparatus that is mounted in a vehicle and that determines whether an object has collided with a side surface of the vehicle from outside the vehicle, comprising: an acceleration detection portion that detects acceleration in a transverse direction of the vehicle which is applied to a door portion of the vehicle from outside the vehicle; an integration execution portion that starts integration of the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion, the integration execution portion compares the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion to one of a pre-set positive threshold value or a pre-set negative threshold value and when the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion fails to exceed the pre-set positive threshold value or fails to fall below the pre-set negative threshold the integration execution portion compares the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion to the other of the pre-set positive threshold value or the pre-set negative threshold value, the integration execution portion only finds velocity by integrating the acceleration when the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion exceeds the pre-set positive threshold value or falls below the pre-set negative threshold value; and a collision determination portion that determines whether the object has collided with the side surface of the vehicle based on the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion and the velocity found by the integration execution portion.