Ford is still working on roof airbags and is filing another patent

Ford has filed a second patent application for roof-mounted airbags aimed at providing vehicle occupants with additional impact protection.

The automaker filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2021 (which was published in late 2022) showing roof-mounted airbags that deploy from a vehicle’s headliner and surround occupants. Now a second application has appeared that shows a similar concept.

Ford Roof Chair Bag Patent Image (from second filing)

This second patent application, published January 26, 2023, focuses on airbags that could cover the space between the front seats and the dashboard. Unlike the previous application, which described elaborate circular enclosures that would fall from the headliner and occupants, this version features a simpler curtain-like airbag that would deploy in front of the driver and front-seat occupants.

While the application seems to focus on a first row use case, this design seems to work well in the second and third rows as well. In one of the accompanying drawings, Ford even shows the interior of a three-row vehicle.

Ford Roof Chair Bag Patent Image (from second filing)

Unlike the previous version, however, this design seems less specific to autonomous vehicles, which Ford mentioned in the first patent application. This application also showed roof-mounted airbags in a vehicle with inward-facing seats, something we don’t see here. Ford has somewhat scaled back its research into autonomous driving since releasing the first application, including halting investment in Argo AI.

This second application could then represent an attempt to retrofit the technology for conventional vehicles. Ford is still working on it, having also filed a patent application for an external airbag system that would deploy behind a vehicle’s grille in collisions. However, it remains to be seen whether any of these novel airbag systems will reach production.