Abstract: An air bag for a vehicle is contained, respectively, in a steering wheel which is disposed in front of a driver's seat and in a dashboard which is disposed in front of a passenger's seat. When a seat switch has detected that there is no passenger seated in the passenger's seat, the inflation of the air bag for the passenger's seat is prohibited. Two impact sensors for detecting the longitudinal and lateral impact forces are provided. When that direction .theta. of the impact force which is obtained by the two sensors deviates towards the passenger's seat beyond a predetermined angle, the prohibition of inflation of the air bag for the passenger's seat is cancelled. When the vehicle is collided at a portion which is deviated towards the passenger's seat, the air bag for the passenger's seat is also inflated to alleviate the movement of the driver towards the passenger's seat.

Abstract: An improved occupant protective system for an automotive vehicle includes an occupant-protecting member, an acceleration sensor for detecting acceleration of the vehicle, an actuator for actuating the occupant-protecting member, and a monitoring device for monitoring potentials of two signal lines connected respectively to the opposite ends of the actuator and having portions thereof extending substantially parallel with each other. One of the signal lines is connected between the acceleration sensor and the actuator. When the vehicle undergoes acceleration having a magnitude greater than a predetermined value, the acceleration sensor operates to cause an increased amount of electric current to flow through the two signal lines to thereby cause the actuator to operate. The improved occupant protective system includes a monitoring line extending parallel with the two signal lines along the portions of the two signal lines extending substantially parallel with each other.

Abstract: A collision detection system for a vehicle comprising an acceleration sensor for sensing the acceleration and deceleration of the vehicle wherein the acceleration sensor is a piezoelectric sensor; signal processing circuit coupled to the piezoelectric sensor for generating a first output when the vehicle deceleration is greater than a predetermined amount. A diagnostic pulse generator is coupled to the piezoelectric sensor for applying a diagnostic pulse to the piezoelectric sensor for distorting the piezoelectric sensor, thereby causing the piezoelectric sensor to generate an electrical output. The electrical output is applied to the signal processing circuit wherein the signal processing circuit produces a second output in response thereto.

Abstract: It is an object of the present invention to provide a collision detector for a vehicle, capable of avoiding the adverse effect of the diagnostic pulses on the detection of a collision so that the failure of the acceleration sensor can be diagnosed correctly. A collision detector in accordance with the present invention comprises a diagnostic pulse generator which applies diagnostic pulses to an acceleration sensor to detect the failure of the acceleration sensor, and a diagnostic circuit which stops the output diagnostic pulses of the diagnostic pulse generator when the output of the acceleration sensor exceeds a malfunction avoidance level which is lower than a reference collision level.

Abstract: An optical information recording and/or reproducing apparatus is provided with a finely moving device. The movement of an optical device converging and radiating a light beam onto an optical information recording medium, is controlled to be able to finely move the position of a spot light radiated onto the recording medium. A coarsely moving device moves an optical head provided with the finely moving device and an optical system. A track crossing velocity monitoring device detects whether the track crossing velocity at which the spot light radiated onto the recording medium crosses the tracks of the recording medium is below a predetermined value. After a coarse access close to an objective track is made by the coarsely moving device, when the track crossing velocity is below the predetermined value, the clamping applied to the optical device at the time of the coarse access will be released.

Abstract: An optical pickup is arranged under an optical disk. Tracks of the disk are irradiated with a laser beam from the pickup. A beam reflected by a given track becomes incident on the pickup. A tracking error signal from the pickup is supplied to a lens moving actuator through a gain phase compensating circuit and a lens driving circuit, and an objective lens in the pickup is radially moved along disk. The tracking error signal is supplied to a voice coil motor through the phase compensating circuit. A carriage carrying the pickup thereon can be radially moved along the disk. When a tracking instruction is generated, the lens driving circuit drives the objective lens to start tracking. Meanwhile, the low-frequency components of the tracking error signal which are lower than the resonance frequency of the lens tracking circuit are amplified by the gain phase compensating circuit.