Patent ID: 7431333

Claim:
A safety restraint system for a vehicle, comprising: a seatbelt restraint system including a seatbelt restraint for restraining an occupant and a seatbelt tension sensor for detecting a seatbelt load in said seatbelt restraint; a variable-output airbag system for fully deploying an airbag substantially proximate in time to when said seatbelt restraint receives a maximum seatbelt load; and a controller coupled to said seatbelt restraint system and said variable-output airbag system, said controller for actuating said variable-output airbag system to deploy said airbag at an output rate during a crash event, said controller for throttling said output rate based on a current seatbelt load rate in said seatbelt restraint during a crash event, wherein said controller determines said output rate based on the weight of said occupant, wherein said controller determines at least one of a maximum threshold and a minimum threshold for said seatbelt load rate based on the weight of said occupant, with said safety restraint system further comprising at least one crash sensor for detecting a crash event and sending a crash signal to said controller; wherein said crash signal actuates said controller to utilize said seatbelt tension sensor for detecting a first seatbelt load and then a second seatbelt load after a time interval from detecting said first seatbelt load, said controller subtracting said first seatbelt load from said second seatbelt load and then dividing the difference by said time interval for determining said current seatbelt load rate.