Joyson sensors measure for safety

Joyson Safety Systems looks for ways to incorporate safety technology into more parts of a vehicle's interior.

For example, the company's integrated foam sensor introduces intelligent seat occupant weight measurements to identify characteristics of who's sitting on the seat.

The vehicle can then provide different airbag deployment strategies to better protect the person in that seat in a crash.

Two printed electrodes and a rubber spacer are used in each sensor. Up to four can be installed in the foam of each seat, with more sensors providing better accuracy.

The sensors measure the force on the seat to identify mass and orientation, which Joyson calls "multi-zonal e-field force sensing." Compared with traditional occupant classification systems that measure only the mass, the system's proprietary algorithms can differentiate between an infant in a car seat, a child in a booster seat or a small female occupant.

These different situations all benefit from more accurate airbag deployments.