System and method for preventing vehicular accidents

1. A vehicle, comprising:

a reactive system that controls the motion or travel direction of the vehicle; and

an anticipatory sensor system that determines that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur unless a corrective action is taken based on data obtained prior to the impact and determining whether the potential impact requires activation of said reactive system;

said anticipatory sensor system comprising at least one receiver that receives waves or energy and a pattern recognition system that analyzes the received waves or energy or data representative of the received waves or energy to determine that an impact is about to occur if corrective action is not taken and to determine whether the potential impact requires activation of said reactive system,

said pattern recognition system being arranged to ascertain the identity of an object from which the waves or energy have been emitted, reflected or generated, the determination whether the impact requires activation of said reactive system being at least partially based on the identification of the object,

said pattern recognition system comprising a processor embodying a pattern recognition algorithm which provides an output of one of a number of pre-determined identities of the object,

said anticipatory sensor system further comprising at least one transmitter that transmits waves or energy away from the vehicle,

said at least one receiver receiving waves or energy transmitted by said at least one transmitter which have been reflected from objects exterior of the vehicle,

the received waves or energy being analyzed by said pattern recognition system to enable the determinations that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur and that the impact requires activation of said reactive system,

said at least one transmitter transmitting infrared waves in an eye-safe range.

2. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle has a front, a rear, a left side and a right side, said anticipatory sensor comprising a monitoring system that monitors at least one of the front, rear, right or left side of the vehicle.

3. The vehicle of claim 1 wherein said reactive system is a system which is arranged to activate at least one of the brakes of the vehicle, a throttle of the vehicle or steering of the vehicle.

4. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein said pattern recognition system is further arranged to determine that the object from which the waves or energy have been emitted, reflected or generated, is a human, pedestrian, animal or cyclist.

5. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein said pattern recognition system is arranged to receive images from said at least one receiver and analyze images of the object in order to ascertain the identity thereof.

6. The vehicle of claim 5 , wherein said pattern recognition system is arranged to perform image subtraction when analyzing the images.

7. The vehicle of claim 6 , wherein the received waves or energy are analyzed by said pattern recognition system to enable determination of the identity of the object, said at least one receiver and said at least one transmitter being controlled such that said at least one receiver receives a first image of the object illuminated by waves transmitted from the vehicle and a second image of the object which is not illuminated by waves transmitted from the vehicle, said pattern recognition system analyzing the first and second images in relation to one another.

8. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein said at least one transmitter is controlled such that the intensity of transmitted infrared waves is determined at least in part by the distance to the reflecting object.

9. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein said anticipatory sensor system is arranged to apply range gating to select a range of an object to be identified.

10. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein said monitoring system monitors a rear of the vehicle and said reactive system is a system which activates the brakes of the vehicle.

11. A vehicle, comprising:

a reactive system that controls the motion or travel direction of the vehicle; and

an anticipatory sensor system that determines that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur unless a corrective action is taken based on data obtained prior to the impact and determining whether the potential impact requires activation of said reactive system;

said anticipatory sensor system comprising at least one receiver that receives waves or energy and a pattern recognition system that analyzes the received waves or energy or data representative of the received waves or energy to determine that an impact is about to occur if corrective action is not taken and to determine whether the potential impact requires activation of said reactive system,

said pattern recognition system being arranged to ascertain the identity of an object from which the waves or energy have been emitted, reflected or generated, the determination whether the impact requires activation of said reactive system being at least partially based on the identification of the object,

said pattern recognition system comprising a processor embodying a pattern recognition algorithm which provides an output of one of a number of pre-determined identities of the object,

said anticipatory sensor system further comprising at least one transmitter that transmits waves or energy away from the vehicle,

said at least one receiver receiving waves or energy transmitted by said at least one transmitter which have been reflected from objects exterior of the vehicle,

the received waves or energy being analyzed by said pattern recognition system to enable the determinations that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur and that the impact requires activation of said reactive system,

said at least one transmitter being arranged to transmit infrared waves and being controlled such that the intensity of transmitted infrared waves is determined at least in part by the distance to the reflecting object.

12. A method for protecting an occupant of a vehicle during an impact between the vehicle and an object, comprising:

determining that an impact involving the vehicle is about to occur if corrective action is not taken prior to the impact;

determining whether the impact requires activation of a reactive system for controlling motion or travel direction of the vehicle, the step of determining whether the impact requires activation of the reactive system comprising:

receiving waves or energy from the object, and

ascertaining the identity of the object based on the received waves or energy by inputting the received waves or energy or data representative of the received waves or energy into a pattern recognition algorithm which ascertains the identity of the object based thereon, the pattern recognition algorithm being designed to provide an output of one of a number of pre-determined identities of the object; and

activating the reactive system when the impact is determined to require such activation,

the step of determining that an impact is about to occur comprising transmitting waves away from the vehicle, receiving the transmitted waves after the waves have been reflected from the object and analyzing the received waves,

the transmitted waves being infrared waves in an eye-safe range.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising designing the pattern recognition algorithm to identify at least one of a human, pedestrian, animal and a cyclist.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising determining an intensity of the infrared waves based at least in part on a distance to the reflecting object.

15. The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of activating the reactive system comprises activating at least one of the brakes of the vehicle, throttle of the vehicle or steering of the vehicle.

16. The method of claim 12 , further comprising using range gating to select a range of an object being monitored for potential impact with the vehicle.