US 11,912,306 B2
Low impact detection for automated driving vehicles
Steven Kanzler, Rochester Hills, MI (US); Kiran Balasubramanian, Canton, MI (US); Carl Munch, Troy, MI (US); Andreas Fleckner, Mülhausen-Ehingen (DE); Harald Pfriender, Constance (DE); Michal Duchowski, Czȩstochowa (PL); Charles Bartlett, Commerce Township, MI (US); and Huahn-Fern Yeh, Novi, MI (US)
Assigned to ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AG, Friedrichshafen (DE)
Appl. No. 17/438,537
Filed by ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AG, Friedrichshafen (DE)
PCT Filed Mar. 20, 2020, PCT No. PCT/IB2020/052605
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Sep. 13, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/208446, PCT Pub. Date Oct. 15, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/830,877, filed on Apr. 8, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0153304 A1, May 19, 2022
Int. Cl. B60W 60/00 (2020.01); B60W 30/095 (2012.01); B60W 40/114 (2012.01)
CPC B60W 60/0017 (2020.02) [B60W 30/095 (2013.01); B60W 40/114 (2013.01); B60W 2554/4029 (2020.02)] 21 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for helping to protect an occupant of a vehicle equipped with an automated driving (AD) system that operates the vehicle without an operator/driver, and a vehicle safety system (VSS) including one or more protection devices by detecting low impact crash events with the vehicle, the method comprising:
identifying possible low impact collision risks using AD sensors of the AD system;
determining a low impact collision resulting from the identified possible low impact collision using VSS sensors of the vehicle safety system; and
controlling the AD system to operate the vehicle in response to determining the low impact collision.