Patent ID: 7881843

Claim:
A vehicle including a discrimination system for determining the type of object struck by the vehicle, the vehicle comprising: a vehicle body including a front bumper, a rear bumper, and a pair of opposite lateral vehicle sides spaced by a lateral width therebetween; an elongate, high rigidity impact receiving member extending continuously across at least half of the vehicle body width in a lateral direction and being mounted at the front or rear bumper and configured for generally uniform one-dimensional travel across the lateral extent of the elongate, rigid impact receiving member relative to the vehicle in a generally fore-and-aft direction extending orthogonal to the lateral direction during a collision with an object; a sensor sized to extend for less than half the length of the impact receiving member for being positioned at a discrete lateral position behind the elongate, high rigidity impact receiving member the sensor being configured to detect a moving speed or acceleration of the elongate, high rigidity impact receiving member during the collision; a controller that determines the type of object struck by the vehicle based on whether a predetermined maximum threshold level relating to acceleration or rate-of-change of the moving speed is reached in a predetermined duration from impact with the object; and a resilient absorbing member disposed inwardly of the elongate, high rigidity impact receiving member extending continuously along at least half of the vehicle width and configured to resiliently flex in response to a collision to facilitate the movement of the elongate, rigid impact receiving member in the fore-and-aft direction relative to the lateral direction.