Patent ID: 8332102

Claim:
A vehicle safety system for detecting and responding to a side impact of the vehicle, the system comprising at least one sensor operable to detect one or more parameters relating to the rate of yaw of the vehicle, and to provide an output that is dependent upon the longitudinal position along the vehicle of the side impact; a processor operable to output an activation signal to activate passive safety devices of the vehicle safety system if it is determined from the one or more parameters that a side impact is occurring or has occurred; the processor operable to determine whether an in-zone side impact is occurring or has occurred and to determine if an off-zone side impact is occurring or has occurred; an in-zone activation signal is output if it is determined that an in-zone side impact is occurring or has occurred and it is determined that a parameter relating to the lateral acceleration of the vehicle exceeds a first threshold, and an off-zone activation signal is output if it is determined that an off-zone side impact is occurring or has occurred and it is determined that at least one of the detected rate of yaw and angular acceleration of the vehicle exceeds a respective yaw threshold and angular acceleration threshold; and the processor operable to selectively activate the passive safety devices in different ways depending on whether the side impact is determined to have occurred in-zone or off-zone.