Patent ID: 7635043

Claim:
A vehicle having a portion defined as a crush zone which is designed to crush upon a crash involving the vehicle and an occupant restraint device; comprising: a crash sensor arrangement for determining whether the crash involving the vehicle requires deployment of the occupant restraint device, said arrangement comprising: a first electronic crash sensor mounted in the crush zone of the vehicle and structured and arranged to measure a reaction of the crush zone to the crash and to output a signal representative of the measurements, said first electronic sensor comprising an accelerometer or a gyroscope and providing the signal based on data from said accelerometer or gyroscope, a processor coupled to said first electronic sensor and arranged to process the signal from said first sensor and determine whether the occupant restraint device should be deployed, a second electronic crash sensor mounted outside of the crush zone of the vehicle and structured and arranged to measure a reaction of the vehicle by means other than crush of the crush zone of the vehicle, said second electronic crash sensor being coupled to said processor, said first and second electronic sensors inputting signals to said processor and said processor being arranged to determine whether the occupant restraint device should be deployed using an algorithm and data from at least one of said first and second electronic sensors, and wherein said first and second electronic crash sensors input signals to said processor simultaneously such that said processor simultaneously monitors crash possibilities from both said first and second crash sensors.