JP2010052044A - Occupant protection device - Google Patents

Abstract

Provided is an occupant protection device capable of deploying a robot air bag at an appropriate timing while suppressing a load on a robot side.
The present invention relates to an occupant protection device (1) including a robot (10) that rides on a vehicle, and the robot may collide with a human at the time of a vehicle collision from the riding position relationship between the robot and the human. The air bag 14 and a control device 12 for controlling the air bag are provided, and the control device deploys the air bag when receiving a vehicle collision signal indicating the occurrence of a vehicle collision from the vehicle side by communication. It is characterized by that.
[Selection] Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to an occupant protection device including a robot riding in a vehicle.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is known a technology for mounting a moving body on a vehicle that is movable or fixed with respect to a vehicle and that is provided with an air bag in order to prevent contact between the robot and an occupant during a vehicle collision or the like. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1).
JP 2002-166379 A

  However, in the configuration described in Patent Document 1 described above, the collision determination is performed on the robot side based on information from the vehicle side. Therefore, since it is necessary to always obtain information from the vehicle side, the communication load is high. In addition, there is a problem that the processing load on the robot side for collision determination becomes higher than necessary. Further, in the configuration in which the collision determination is performed on the robot side based on information from the vehicle side, the airbag may not be activated at an appropriate timing depending on the relationship between the collision determination logic to be mounted and the CPU processing capability.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an occupant protection device capable of deploying a robot air bag at an appropriate timing while suppressing a load on the robot side.

In order to achieve the above object, a first invention is an occupant protection device including a robot riding in a vehicle,
The robot includes an airbag at a portion where the robot may collide with a human at the time of a vehicle collision from a boarding position relationship between the robot and a human, and a control device that controls the airbag. The air bag is deployed when a vehicle collision signal representing the occurrence of this is received from the vehicle side by communication.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the passenger | crew protection apparatus which can expand | deploy the airbag of a robot at an appropriate timing is obtained, suppressing the load by the side of a robot.

  The best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of an occupant protection device 1 according to the present invention.

  The occupant protection device 1 according to the present embodiment includes a robot 10 that can ride in a vehicle and a vehicle-side device 20. The robot 10 does not necessarily have a human shape, but has a mass sufficient to mount an air bag 14 to be described later in order to mitigate an impact caused by a collision with an occupant.

  The vehicle-side device 20 is a device mounted on a vehicle, and includes an airbag ECU 22, a communication device 23, and various sensors 24 as shown in FIG.

  The airbag ECU 22 is configured by a microcomputer, and includes, for example, a ROM for storing a control program, a readable / writable RAM for storing calculation results, a timer, a counter, an input interface, an output interface, and the like.

  The various sensors 24 are sensors that detect physical quantities used to detect a vehicle collision, and are typically accelerations mounted at appropriate locations in the vehicle (for example, in front of floor tunnels and front side members). It is a sensor. The various sensors 24 may include a yaw rate sensor, a radar sensor, an image sensor, and the like.

  The airbag ECU 22 determines whether or not the vehicle has collided with an obstacle based on sensor signals periodically supplied from various sensors 24. A wide variety of collision determination methods have been proposed, and any appropriate method may be employed. For example, as a very simple example, the airbag ECU 22 may determine that a collision has occurred when the acceleration level detected by the acceleration sensor serving as the various sensors 24 exceeds a predetermined threshold. In any case, when the airbag ECU 22 determines that a collision has occurred, the airbag ECU 22 generates a signal indicating this (hereinafter referred to as a vehicle collision signal), and transmits the generated vehicle collision signal to the robot via the communication device 23. 10 to send.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the robot 10 includes a control device 12, a communication device 13 that can communicate with the communication device 23 of the vehicle-side device 20 described above, and an airbag 14. Further, the robot 10 preferably further includes a seat belt fixing mechanism 16 as shown in FIG. The communication device 13 may perform wired communication (for example, realized by connecting to the in-vehicle LAN with a connector) or wireless communication with the communication device 13 of the vehicle-side device 20 described above. May be.

  The air bag 14 is provided at a portion of the robot 10 where there is a possibility of collision with a human depending on the relationship between the riding posture of the robot 10 and the riding posture of a human (a human who rides the vehicle, typically a driver). It is done. For example, as a very simple example, when the robot 10 has a human-like shape and is assumed to be seated in a passenger seat, the airbag 14 is positioned on the driver's seat side of the robot 10 (in the robot 10). It may be provided in the whole range from the waist part on the driver's seat side to the shoulder part or a part thereof. When various relations between the riding posture of the robot 10 and the riding posture of a human are assumed, a plurality of airbags 14 may be set corresponding to these relationships.

  The control device 12 may be configured by a microcomputer in the same manner as the airbag ECU 22. When the communication device 13 receives a vehicle collision signal from the communication device 13 of the vehicle side device 20 described above, the control device 12 deploys the airbag 14 in response to the vehicle collision signal (that is, the inflator of the airbag 14). Ignite). Thereby, it is possible to reduce or prevent the impact that the robot 10 may collide with the human due to the inertia at the time of the vehicle collision and give to the human.

  FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of specific processing executed by the control device 12 according to the present embodiment. The processing routine shown in FIG. 2 may be repeatedly executed at predetermined intervals while the robot 10 is riding on the vehicle.

  In step 200, it is determined whether or not the robot 10 is fixed (restrained) to the vehicle with a seat belt. When the seat belt is installed on the vehicle side, this determination may be realized based on information obtained from the vehicle-side device 20 through communication (that is, an on / off signal of a buckle switch). If the robot 10 is fixed to the vehicle with a seat belt, the process proceeds to step 202. On the other hand, when the robot 10 is not fixed to the vehicle with a seat belt, the processing of the current cycle is finished as it is. In this case, it is also possible to alert the person who is traveling with the robot 10 to fix the robot 10 with a seat belt. Alternatively, the seat belt fixing mechanism 16 may be driven so that the robot 10 itself is fixed by the seat belt.

  In step 202, it is determined whether or not a vehicle collision signal is received from the airbag ECU 22 via the communication devices 13 and 23. If a vehicle collision signal is received, the process proceeds to step 204. If a vehicle collision signal is not received, the processing of the current cycle is terminated as it is.

  In step 204, a drive signal (voltage) is applied to a drive circuit (not shown) for the airbag 14 to deploy the airbag 14 built in the robot 10.

  In the example shown in FIG. 2, the processing order of the processing in step 200 and the processing in step 202 may be reversed. In this case, the processing routine including steps 202, 200, and 204 may be started when a vehicle collision signal is received from the airbag ECU 22.

  FIG. 3 is a top view of a vehicle on which a human (driver) and the robot 10 ride together, and shows the main configuration of the control device 12 of this embodiment. In the example shown in FIG. 3, the airbag 14 is set on the left and right of the robot 10, and the vehicle is set with a side airbag to protect the occupant against a side collision or the like. As described above, in the example shown in FIG. 3, for example, when an obstacle collides with the vehicle from the X direction in FIG. 3, the robot 10 moves toward the driver due to inertia. By transmitting the collision signal to the control device 12 of the robot 10, the airbag 14 (only the airbag 14 on the driver side or both airbags 14) is deployed, and the driver is protected from the collision from the robot 10. be able to. At this time, the airbag ECU 22 also deploys a side airbag on the driver's seat mounted on the vehicle. Accordingly, the airbag 14 is deployed at an appropriate timing without a delay substantially at the same time as the side airbag on the driver's seat side.

  As described above, according to the occupant protection device 1 of the present embodiment, the following excellent effects are achieved.

  In the present embodiment, as described above, since the robot 10 deploys the airbag 14 in response to the reception of the vehicle collision signal from the vehicle side device 20, it is not necessary to provide a collision determination function to the robot 10 itself. As a result, for example, communication load and processing load for collision determination are reduced as compared to a configuration in which information from various sensors 24 on which the robot is mounted is periodically received by communication and the collision determination is performed by itself. can do. Further, according to the present embodiment, for example, compared with a configuration in which the robot periodically receives information from the various sensors 24 through communication and performs a collision determination by itself, it is necessary to receive information from the various sensors 24. Since the time and the time for performing the collision determination can be omitted, the airbag 14 can be quickly deployed.

  Further, as in the example shown in FIG. 2, only when the robot 10 is fixed by a seat belt (that is, only when the robot 10 is substantially restrained with respect to the vehicle body), the airbag 14 is By deploying, it is possible to prevent the airbag 14 from being deployed in a situation where an effective effect due to the deployment of the airbag 14 cannot be obtained.

  The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above. However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications and substitutions can be made to the above-described embodiments without departing from the scope of the present invention. Can be added.

  For example, in the embodiment described above, a boarding position determination function may be added to the control device 12 of the robot 10. That is, the control device 12 may have a function of estimating (determining) the boarding position of the robot 10. For example, the control device 12 may determine the boarding position of the robot 10 based on information obtained from the vehicle-side device 20 through communication (for example, information from an occupant detection sensor, a buckle switch, or the like). In this case, the control device 12 may deploy the airbag 14 of the robot 10 only when the person on board is likely to collide with the robot 10 in accordance with the boarding position of the robot 10. For example, the airbag 14 of the robot 10 may be deployed only when the side airbag (see FIG. 3) at the position where the person is riding is deployed. For this purpose, the vehicle collision signal from the airbag ECU 22 may include information indicating a collision mode (vehicle-side airbag to be operated). For example, the vehicle collision signal may include information indicating a collision mode such as a front collision, a right front seat collision, a left front seat collision, a right rear seat collision, a left rear seat collision, a right rollover, a left rollover, and a rear collision.

  Moreover, in the Example mentioned above, the vehicle collision signal from the vehicle side apparatus 20 is good also as being produced in a common format among many vehicle types. Thereby, compatibility or versatility is improved, and the airbag 14 can be deployed in response to the above-described vehicle collision signal even when the robot 10 rides on another different vehicle.

It is a figure showing one example of crew member protection device 1 by the present invention. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the specific process performed by the control apparatus 12 of a present Example. It is a figure which shows roughly the top view of the vehicle on which the human (driver | operator) and the robot 10 boarded as a typical situation where the passenger | crew protection device 1 of a present Example functions.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Crew protection device 10 Robot 12 Control device 13 Communication device 14 Air bag 16 Seat belt fixing mechanism 20 Vehicle side device 22 Air bag ECU
23 Communication device 24 Various sensors

Claims (1)

An occupant protection device including a robot that rides in a vehicle,
The robot includes an air bag at a portion that may collide with a human at the time of a vehicle collision from a boarding position relationship between the robot and the human, and includes a control device that controls the air bag,
The control device deploys the airbag when receiving a vehicle collision signal representing the occurrence of a vehicle collision from the vehicle side by communication, and the occupant protection device.

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