Honda’s new passenger front airbag technology claims to offer better protection to occupants in a wide range of frontal collision scenarios, which includes angled crashes between vehicles or objects. The new airbag design is likely to be used in new products in the United States in 2020. The new airbag gets three inflatable elements, which includes – traditional airbag and two side chambers that project outward. The goal here is to keep the occupants as stationary as possible in an event of a crash and operate something like a baseball catcher’s mitt.
The two extra elements in the airbag work to hold the driver’s or the passenger’s head in place and prevent it from sliding off a traditional airbag. Jim Keller, President of Honda R&D Americas, Inc, said, "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."
Honda is aggressively deploying its Honda Sensing and AcuraWatch suites of safety and driver-assistive systems. This is in addition to airbags, seatbelts and advanced crash safety structures like the company's Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure.
