Side impact preventive occupant protection system, basic function

General

In the event of a side impact, only a limited crumple zone is available for vehicle occupants. To increase this, the preventive occupant protection system moves the driver or front passenger in the event of a side impact as far as possible out of the acute danger zone before the crash actually occurs.

Air chambers in the side bolsters of the seat backrest are inflated within fractions of a second. This gives the vehicle occupants a side pulse that moves the head and upper torso towards the vehicle center. This movement also reduces the speed differential between the colliding vehicle and the vehicle occupants. This enables the load applied to the chest by the side collision to be reduced.

At the same time, the reversible emergency tensioning retractor is activated for the vehicle occupant at the opposite side. If the reversible belt tensioner on the impact side was already activated, it is deactivated just before the collision.

Function requirement

 Circuit 15 ON

Preventive occupant protection system side impact

The traffic area next to the vehicle is monitored by radar sensors at front left and right of the vehicle. They detect objects that are on a collision course with the vehicle and that will probably cause a side impact.

If a collision is unavoidable, the air chambers in the side bolsters of the seat backrest are inflated within fractions of a second. To do this, pyrotechnical gas generators, which are situated at each side in the seat, are triggered. The vehicle occupant is then moved towards the vehicle center.