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Designed to mimic a baseball mitt by wrapping around the driver’s noggin, the new airbag is expected to hit production in 2020.
Honda engineers in the USA have developed a new kind of front passenger airbag, designed to be more effective in front-on accidents.
Where conventional airbags use only one inflating component, the new Honda unit relies on four: a large central chamber, two chambers inflating outwards off the side, and a ‘sail panel’ linking the two outboard sections.
Honda says the chambers work in concert to catch the driver’s head and bring it into the centre of the airbag, almost like a baseball catcher’s mitt, minimising the chances a passenger’s head will slide off the ‘bag or dramatically rotate in awkwardly-angled accidents.
“This new airbag technology represents Honda’s continuing effort to advance safety performance in a wider variety of crash scenarios and reflects the innovative thinking that our engineers are bringing to the challenge of reducing traffic injuries and fatalities,” said Jim Keller, president of Honda R&D in the Americas.
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