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The airbag systems in the first generation had been developed and are equipped in real automobiles. This paper is aimed at describing a new airbag scheme that might be categorized in the 1.5 generation. The airbag system always needs some delay time between the triggering and complete expanding. The existence of the delay time is the main cause of difficulty for accurate airbag triggering. The predictive airbag expanding algorithm that compensates the delay time was proposed and the validity was examined in the first generation development. Development of the 1.5 generation airbag systems with the higher performance are our next problem. Airbag equipped in automobiles must receive driver's body at the optimal timing when collision by which the effect of airbag is extremely improved. The more accurate predictive airbag system is required.

An airbag upon collision of automobiles must finish expanding at the time when the driver's body arrives at the surface of the expanded airbag from the normal position and it must receive the body softly. Either early or late expansion reduce the effect. Determination of the optimal timing for trigger the airbag is quite important. But it is a difficult job, due to the time delay in the bag filling with the gas after collision. This paper focuses on the issue of the airbag technology to how to find the optimal trigger timing and presents a new and straightforward algorithm to determine the timing by introducing the concept of the prediction. The algorithm first predicts how the driver's body will move in the future time for a time equivalent to the delay time and triggers the airbag by the predicted information so that it can compensate the delay by the airbag operation.