[LMB] Airbags OT:

[Peter Newman]

> "Nicholas Rosen" <ndrosen at erols.com> 

Peter Newman <pnewman at gci.net> wrote:
>> You could probably even have use radar
>> or sonar so the airbag would know the exact size and
>> location of the person in the seat. The data goes to
>> the airbags software (of course airbags with software
>> would cost more) 

> Right.  Currently, I believe they have a simple MEMS trigger.

>> and the bag then knows how to best deploy.
>> There would probably be a time lag involved, since you don't
>> want the bag to stop and think about where you are for
>> even a hundredth of a second before deploying, so it should
>> probably always be calculating this and then automatically
>> deploy with its last calculated figure.
> 
> 
> This all sounds non-trivial to me, but if you think it can be
> done, you're free to try inventing it.  My colleagues and I
> can use the job security.

Oh, I'm sure _I_ can't invent it, but I'm also pretty
sure it can be invented. I got the idea when I saw one
of those cars that had collision warning sensors that
beep when you're about to back into something. I figured
if they can have those for objects outside the car, then
they can have them for objects inside the car. Since the
driver and passengers are the most important things in the
car, they're what the sensor should locate. Because it
does no good for the car to know where someone is and not
be able to do anything about it, they should be hooked
up to the airbags.

But inventing, like writing, is one of those things where
the idea is the easy part, making it actually work well
is the hard part.

--
"Have you ever wanted to kill someone?" You might as well ask me,
"Do you ever check your email?" - RK Millholand, Something 
Positive - October 29, 2007 
http://somethingpositive.net/sp10292007.shtml

Peter Newman         pnewman at gci.net