Ford Receives Patent for External Airbag System

Ford has filed a patent application for an external airbag that deploys from behind the grille of the vehicle in the event of a crash.

The application, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March 1, 2021, and published on September 1, describes an airbag system similar to those already required in the United States for vehicle interiors as an supplemental restraint system (SRS) to protect occupants.

Like conventional airbags, external airbags use pyrotechnics for deployment and inflation and are activated by sensors that detect a crash. In this case, however, the airbag is attached to the front end structure of the vehicle, deploys from behind the grille, and covers the front edge of the hood.

In its application, Ford states that the system can be used in most types of private passenger vehicles, including passenger cars, SUVs, crossovers, pickup trucks, minivans, and even cabs and buses. It can also be used for autonomous vehicles, according to Ford.

Ford is not the only company experimenting with external airbags; in 2019, German automotive supplier ZF unveiled a prototype of an external airbag system for side impacts. Designed to provide an additional crumple zone to help absorb the energy of the impact, the external airbag could reduce injury severity by 40%, ZF said at the time.

ZF seems quite confident in its technology, claiming that software and sensors can deploy the external airbag in as little as 100 milliseconds and fully inflate it before it comes into contact with an object or another vehicle, but the company has yet to put it into production. Perhaps Ford will have better luck with a forward-deployed version of this technology.