With the development of technologies and automated systems for monitoring vehicle performance, cars are becoming safer and safer. Tesla cars are among the safest in the world, and do an excellent job of both preventing accidents and ensuring the safety of passengers if one does occur. Nevertheless, the company strives to further improve the protection of passengers, because safety in the vehicle is the most crucial priority of the manufacturer.

Despite the development of technology, at the moment there remain difficulties with the reliable detection of vehicle passengers and accurate classification as children, relatively small adults, and/or according to other classification, and particularly in differentiating between classifications. Determining their exact classification can be critical when a vehicle is attempting to assist or take safety measures to protect a passenger during an accident.

For example, if the passenger's classification is accurately determined, the airbag deployment can be adjusted to reduce the risk of injury caused by it. At the same time, there are a number of subtleties. While reduced-force airbag deployment is recommended for relatively small adult females, it is not recommended for young children (e.g., 10 and below), even though the young children can reach heights and weights approaching those of the relatively small adult females. Therefore, there is a need for an improved methodology to provide reliable and accurate classification of vehicle occupants.

Tesla published patent 'Vehicle Occupant Classification Systems And Methods'

Application date: 08/10/2020
Date of publication: 26/11/2020

Image illustrates a block diagram of a vehicle accessory system in accordance with an embodiment of the disclosure

The patent discloses techniques for systems and methods for detecting and/or classifying a vehicle occupant. A vehicle accessory control system may include one or more occupant weight sensors, occupant presence sensors, and logic devices configured to communicate with the occupant weight sensors and occupant presence sensors.

The logic devices may be configured to receive sensor signals associated with the occupant weight and occupant presence sensors, determine estimated occupant weights and occupant presence responses, and determine and report corresponding occupant classification statuses. They may also be configured to determine the estimated occupant weights and the occupant presence responses.

In various embodiments, an occupant classification system may include one or more temperature sensors, electrical sensors, environmental sensors, sound-monitoring subsystems, communication modules, and/or additional sensors, actuators, controllers, user interfaces, and/or other modules mounted to or within a vehicle. Each component of the system may be implemented with a logic device adapted to form one or more wired and/or wireless communication links for transmitting and/or receiving sensor signals, control signals, or other signals and/or data between the various components.

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