Injury reduction with smart restraint systems

Smart restraint systems can be used to achieve a number of goals. They can adjust to compensate for out of position occupants, minimizing airbag inflation and therefore airbag induced injuries. They can also be used to detect child seat usage and subsequently decide whether to inflate the passenger side airbag system. But as importantly, the smart restraint system can allow restraint system design the flexibility to optimize the occupant response. This optimization could be based on crash severity, occupant size, occupant position or more accurately; interior space available, as well as belt usage. The focus of this paper is the optimization of occupant response based on environmental information such as occupant size, position and crash severity.