Appeal No. 1999-1742
Application No. 08/730,674
Breed discloses an occupant position sensor adapted for
installation in the passenger compartment of an automotive
vehicle equipped with a passenger protective device such as an
inflatable air bag. When the vehicle is subjected to a crash
of sufficient magnitude as to require deployment of the
protective device and the sensor system has determined that the
device is to be deployed, the occupant position sensor
determines the position of the occupant relative to the air bag
and disables deployment of the air bag if the occupant is
positioned so that he/she is likely to be injured by the
deploying air bag. See col. 5, ll. 7-18.
In the embodiment shown in Figure 8 of Breed, a 144 MHZ
signal is fed into an infrared diode driver 803 which drives an
infrared diode 804 causing it to emit infrared light modulated
at 144 MHZ and a reference phase angle of zero degrees. The
infrared diode 804 is directed at the vehicle occupant. A
second signal 3f2 having a frequency of 144.15 MHZ is fed into a
mixer 807 which combines it with the 144 MHZ signal. The
combined signal from the mixer 807 is fed to filter 808 which
removes all signals except for the difference, or beat
frequency, of 150 KHz. The infrared signal which is reflected
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