Mercedes Celebrates 25 Years Of The Airbag

Posted by www.eMercedesBenz.com on October 27, 2005 at 10:20 AM CST

It's been twenty-five years since Mercedes first implemented the  
airbag in a standard production S-Class, and our noggins haven't been  
the same since.

It all started in 1967, when Mercedes first entered into airbag  
research. Thanks to several key inventions, including a sensor system  
and gas generator capable of deploying the airbag in just 30  
milliseconds, tear resistant fabric, and making the airbag small  
enough to fit in an impact-absorbing steering wheel, Mercedes  
engineers were able to turn the vision of an airbag into a reality.

In 1980, after 250 vehicle tests, 2,500 sled tests, and over 7  
million kilometers of trials in test cars, the airbag was finally  
added to the first production Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Now, some twenty- 
five years later, it is estimated that over 14,200 lives have been  
saved in the United States alone, thanks to our fluffy white friends.

Despite the success of the airbag, Mercedes continues to lead the way  
in researching and developing new safety technology to implement in  
their vehicles.  The new S-Class features a total of eight airbags,  
providing protection to all passengers of the vehicle, as opposed to  
those in just the front seats. Mercedes also believes that airbags of  
the future will take into account the vehicle occupant's body size,  
sex, and age, to better protect passengers in the event of an accident.

If you want to learn more about the history of airbags as well as  
other safety innovations Mercedes has pioneered, you can check out  
the full press release at http://emercedesbenz.com/ 
Oct05/27MercedesCelebrates25YearsOfAirbag.html You can also click any  
of the photos below to see the full-size version. Enjoy.


OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE


Life-Saving Innovation Celebrates Milestone Anniversary: Airbag First  
Introduced As Standard At Mercedes-Benz 25 Years Ago

Stuttgart, Oct 27, 2005

It is now 25 years since the first production car to be fitted with  
an airbag, an S-Class Saloon, rolled off the production line at  
Mercedes Benz in Sindelfingen – the culmination of over 13 years of  
development work and the beginning of a new era in vehicle safety.  
According to accident research, the airbag has saved over 14,200  
human lives in the USA to date; in Germany, meanwhile, the airbag has  
prevented over 2,500 fatal injuries to car occupants since 1990.  
Mercedes-Benz offered the airbag long before any other car  
manufacturer and has so far equipped more than twelve million  
vehicles with this safety innovation. It has been fitted as standard  
in all passenger cars displaying the Mercedes star since October  
1992. In recent years, Mercedes engineers have continued to develop  
airbag technology, for example by introducing side airbags and  
systems that adapt in line with the severity of the accident. Airbags  
are also set to become an integral part of the PRE-SAFEŽ anticipatory  
occupant protection system, equipped with new, anticipatory sensors  
which will enable them to deploy in advance of a possible accident so  
as to reduce the forces exerted on the car occupants both before and  
during any impact. For the same reasons, the airbags of the future  
will also take into account individual parameters such as the body  
size, sex and age of the occupants.

The airbag is very much a part of Mercedes history. Like the crumple  
zone, safety steering system, seat belt tensioner, anti-lock braking  
system and other Mercedes inventions, it is a testament to the  
pioneering role played by the Stuttgart-based manufacturer in the  
field of passenger car safety.
The development of the airbag began in 1967 and required pioneering  
achievements in numerous fields. Although the idea for an air cushion  
of this kind had been around since the early fifties, engineers had  
been unable to come up with a solution to transform the vision into  
reality. However, the Mercedes team had made great progress with a  
discriminating sensor system and a gas generator capable of deploying  
the airbag in just 30 milliseconds. They also developed the tear- 
resistant airbag fabric, improved the airbag's inflation  
characteristics and finally made it possible to house the entire  
system in the impact-absorbing boss of a steering wheel.

After more than 250 vehicle crash tests, 2,500 sled tests and over  
seven million kilometres of trials in test cars, the airbag was  
finally ready for production in December 1980 when it celebrated its  
world premiere together with another innovation, the seat belt  
tensioner, in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. As early as 1991, some 28  
percent of all Mercedes passenger cars were equipped with a driver's  
airbag. And it has been fitted as standard in all cars displaying the  
Mercedes star since October 1992.

US statistics: airbags have saved over 14,200 human lives since 1987

Right from the start, Mercedes-Benz had designed the airbag to  
supplement the three-point seat belt whose primary function was to  
provide additional protection in the event of a frontal impact.  
Accident research results confirm the wisdom of this approach: back  
in the seventies, around 30 percent of Mercedes car drivers wearing  
seat belts involved in very severe frontal collisions suffered life- 
threatening injuries; however Mercedes experts can confirm that  
serious injury rates of this magnitude are firmly a thing of the past  
thanks to the excellent interaction between the airbag, seat belt,  
belt tensioner and other protection measures.

If these Mercedes accident research results are projected to take  
into account all passenger cars, it emerges that the airbag has  
helped to save over 2,500 human lives in Germany alone since 1990.

The American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has  
calculated that airbags protect one in every three car occupants  
against serious injury in an accident. Furthermore, around one in six  
drivers and front passengers involved in road accidents owe their  
lives to airbags. Since 1987, the airbag has saved the lives of over  
14,200 car occupants in the USA.

Mercedes innovations: sidebags and windowbags for supplementary  
protection

The Mercedes engineers built on their big lead in the airbag  
development stakes and continued to further improve the system. The  
world premiere of the driver's airbag was followed by the launch of  
the front-passenger airbag in 1988 and, in 1995, the introduction of  
one of the first side airbags for passenger cars. The latter has been  
supplemented by the windowbag since 1998. This was also the year in  
which Mercedes-Benz introduced adaptive airbags that deploy in two  
stages, depending on the severity of the accident, thus providing  
even more effective occupant protection.

In addition, the PRE-SAFEŽ anticipatory occupant protection system –  
unveiled by Mercedes-Benz in 2002 and still not available in this  
form from any other car manufacturer – further enhances the  
protective effect of the seat belt and the airbag. Advance tensioning  
of the front seat belts and repositioning of the seats ahead of a  
potential accident prepares the occupants for a possible collision,  
meaning that the seat belts and airbags offer the highest possible  
level of protection when activated.


State-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz passenger cars like the new S-Class  
are equipped with a total of eight airbags: two adaptive front  
airbags, four sidebags and two windowbags. As well as being able to  
test itself, the airbag technology is maintenance-free and remains  
functional for the entire lifetime of the Mercedes Benz passenger car.

Vision for the future: an airbag that is triggered before impact

Airbags will continue to play an important role in passenger car  
safety in years to come. Mercedes engineers are looking into the  
possibility of a protective system that automatically adapts itself  
to take into account the current accident situation and the car  
occupants. Sophisticated radar technology of the kind recently  
introduced in the new S-Class could help in this respect. If  
developed a stage further, this radar technology and other  
anticipatory sensors could provide the data needed to calculate the  
severity of an unavoidable accident before actual impact. Airbags  
could then become an integral part of the PRE-SAFEŽ system, deploying  
before impact in several slower stages and with a greater volume of  
air in order to protect the occupants for a longer period of time.

Another priority for the airbags of tomorrow is to provide even more  
personalised protection. By way of example, it should be possible to  
program the on-board computer with information such as the age, sex  
and biometric data (e.g. body size and weight) of the occupants in  
order to tailor the protection system to individual requirements.

For more Mercedes-Benz news and information, visit eMercedesBenz at  
www.eMercedesBenz.com