Patent ID: 7675820

Claim:
A method of characterizing an impact to a vehicle, comprising the steps of: sensing acoustic emission wave energy in a frame of the vehicle; isolating shear wave components of the sensed acoustic emission wave energy; characterizing a transmission of the isolated shear wave components through the frame to determine a direction of the impact; sensing the acoustic emission wave energy at first, second and third distributed locations on the frame; isolating the shear wave components of the sensed acoustic emission wave energy at each of the first, second and third locations; characterizing the transmission of the isolated shear wave components through the frame by identifying at time-of-arrival of the shear wave components at the first, second and third locations; determining the direction of the impact based on the identified times-of arrival; evaluating the identified times-of-arrival for plausibility; and issuing a diagnostic error report if the evaluation reveals that identified times-of-arrival are implausible.