Patent ID: 7039513

Claim:
A control configuration for an occupant protection device in a motor vehicle, the control configuration comprising: a sensor field having at least two acceleration sensors, said acceleration sensors having at least two sensor elements allowing acceleration sensing along three sensitivity axes; said sensitivity axes of said sensor elements of said acceleration sensors spanning a plane, said plane, after integrating the control configuration in a motor vehicle, being substantially parallel to a plane defined by a longitudinal axis of the vehicle and a transverse axis of the vehicle; at least one evaluation device including: for a normal or crash mode: a safing routine to test plausibility of all output signals of said sensors by creating a weighted sum from the output signals, and a crash routine to evaluate the output signals; and for a test mode: a test routine sending a test signal to at least two of said acceleration sensors to generate output signals to test operation of said sensors; at least one test signal to be modified with a weighting device by a predefinable weighting factor causing at least one of said acceleration sensors to output a weighted output signal; and during the test routine, the output signals of said acceleration sensors disposed in said sensor field to be processed according to the safing routine; the weighted sum of the output signals producing a predefined value when said acceleration sensors are capable of operation; and error-free operation of the control configuration being able to be determined when the weighted sum of the output signals actually supplied during the test routine approximately produces the predefined value.