Patent ID: 7546193

Claim:
A vehicle occupant protection apparatus, comprising: a first acceleration sensor, attached to a front portion of a vehicle, for detecting acceleration in the vehicle's longitudinal direction; a second acceleration sensor, attached to a substantially central portion in the vehicle's longitudinal direction, for detecting acceleration in the vehicle's longitudinal direction; an integral initiation control device for issuing an integral initiation command at the time acceleration detected by the first acceleration sensor exceeds a preset threshold value for determining whether a collision of the vehicle is occurring; a first acceleration integral device for obtaining a first integral acceleration value by taking the time integral of acceleration detected by the first acceleration sensor based on the integral initiation command from the integral initiation control device; a second acceleration integral device for obtaining a second integral by the second acceleration sensor based on the integral initiation command from the integral initiation control device; a subtraction device for calculating a difference between the first integral acceleration value and the second integral acceleration value; and an initiation determining device for determining a type of the collision using the difference calculated by the subtraction device and starting an operation of a vehicle protection device for protecting a vehicle occupant of the vehicle based on the determined type of the collision.