Patent ID: 8509997

Claim:
A passenger detection system comprising: a passenger detecting part installed peripherally with respect to a seat of a vehicle, the passenger detecting part including a load detecting section configured and arranged to detect a load caused by a passenger seated on the seat; and a passenger detection controller including a passenger recognizing section configured to execute a passenger recognition based on a load detection signal outputted from the load detecting section, a movement detecting section configured to detect whether the vehicle is moving or stopped based on the load detection signal outputted from the load detecting section, and an activation determining section configured to execute a determination as to whether or not to activate an airbag apparatus of the vehicle based on a passenger recognition signal outputted from the passenger recognizing section and to issue an activation determination signal when a movement detection signal outputted from the movement detecting section indicates that the vehicle is stopped, and to forgo executing a determination as to whether or not to activate the airbag apparatus and to hold a determination result from a previous control cycle when the movement detection signal indicates that the vehicle is moving.