Horse-Rider Protection System Comprising an Airbag Waistcoat Connected to a Sensor That Senses Falling of the Horse

This application is a National Stage of International Application No. PCT/EP2023/061791, having an International Filing Date of 4 May 2023, which designated the United States of America, and which International Application was published under PCT Article 21(2) as WO Publication No. 2023/213937, which claims priority from and the benefit of French Patent Application No. 2204246 filed on 4 May 2022, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

The present disclosure relates to the field of personal protective equipment for sportsmen and other users, in particular airbags for riders, and relates, more particularly, to a protective system for a rider comprising an airbag vest connected to a sensor for detecting a fall of the horse. The present disclosure finds a direct, yet non-exclusive, application in horse riding and more particularly in obstacle skipping.

Injuries and traumatic deaths related to sporting practice remain frequent despite a significant improvement in safety steps and the development of increasingly efficient protective equipment.

The equestrian sport, in these various disciplines, is a particularly risky practice.

Indeed, the speed and the weight of the horse as well as the perilous figures performed by the rider are factors that could cause accidents with different levels of seriousness. In some disciplines more than others, the riders are exposed to the risk of serious falls sometimes with a fatal outcome.

The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) published the statistics regarding falls and injuries during the international complete contest tests over the period from 2008 to 2019. These statistics reveal, inter alia, that many riders have undergone very serious injuries, sometimes fatal injuries, by violently falling off their horse and/or by being crushed or trampled on by the horse once on the floor.

The situations in which the horse falls over the rider happen very quickly and hardly leaves time to the rider to extract himself/herself in order to avoid crushing by the horse, especially when the rider remains on the saddle despite the fall. This type of fall, so-called “panache” in the specialised jargon when it occurs during an obstacle skipping, is the most dangerous one because the horse is likely to crush the rider with all of its entire weight against the ground.

These falls are even more dangerous since conventional protective equipment of the airbag type are triggered by means of a cable which connects the vest to the saddle and therefore the rider to the horse, so that if the rider remains on the saddle, the airbag does not trigger and the effects of crushing by the horse are not mitigated.

Indeed, it is when the rider is ejected from the saddle that the cable triggers the inflation of the airbag via a mechanical gas generator that strikes the gas cartridge to inflate the sheath integrated into the vest. Hence, this cable-based system does not allow detecting the fall of a horse that falls on its rider if the rider did not eject off the saddle.

In addition, when the horse is in an extreme posture likely to cause fall thereof, it is almost impossible to it to recover the balance position, and the fall becomes unavoidable. This is due to the locomotor apparel of the horse which makes it very efficient in terms of speed, jump and endurance, but which does not enable it to recover its balance if it takes a large angle of lateral inclination because it cannot spread its limbs enough to “catch up”, neither is it able to do so if it exceeds a significant angle of longitudinal inclination because its front limbs have a limited longitudinal step and therefore do not open enough to make it tilt in the opposite direction (unlike other more agile animals whose limbs have a large amplitude of opening in order to avoid this type of falls).

The known protective equipment does not allow overcoming this limit, despite many improvements to best protect all sensitive areas of the rider.

For example, document U.S. Pat. No. 6,032,299A describes a vest designed to mitigate cerebrospinal lesions associated with a fall of a rider. This vest activates when a particular phenomenon, like a fall of the rider off the horse during a race, is detected. A gas generator blows in a gas into a series of air ducts which inflate a series of pockets, mini-cushions and a volume for protecting the cervical region, by a series of concentric circular cylinders expanding to offer resistance to movements transverse to their concentric axis. A series of plugs installed in cascade inside the air ducts are moved by the effect of the injected gas. These plugs form a column which, with the other columns and with a support element accommodated inside the collar of the vest, form an outer framework around the cervical region of the rider. Furthermore, this vest comprises a micro-electric apparatus ensuring triggering thereof.

Nonetheless, this vest, with a reinforced protection, is triggered only in the event of a fall of the rider off his/her saddle, and does not allow detecting a fall of the horse to protect the rider in the event of crushing by the horse.

Moreover, the use of a cable to trigger an airbag vest has numerous drawbacks, in particular by impeding the rider at least visually (feeling as if he/she were attached and not being free in his/her movement), and by imposing additional constraints thereon when he/she has to lock the cable by means of mechanisms that are sometimes difficult to handle and not very reliable.

Document US2014/125450 relates to a personal protection apparatus, which comprises at least one main control unit connected to one or more main sensor(s) and to transceivers allowing emitting and receiving control and/or activation signals on radio channels. This apparatus is intended to be connected to a rider garment in the context of a motorbike use or the like, and it is not configured to detect a horse fall.

There are other personal protective solutions for motorcycles and the like, such as those described in documents US2009/127835 and US2009/055053. These solutions do not correspond to rider protection systems and cannot be easily adapted because of the completely different kinematics between a horse and a motorcycle. Indeed, personal protection systems for motorcycles have existed for a long time and no successful adaptation to riders has been made to the Applicant's knowledge.

The present disclosure aims to overcome the drawbacks of the prior art set out hereinbefore and provides an innovative and particularly effective solution for improving the safety of a rider in the event of fall of his/her horse, especially in situations where the horse is at the risk of falling over him/her and of crushing him/her with all its weight.

To this end, an object of the present disclosure is a protection system, for a rider on a horse likely to fall over him/her, in particular in obstacle skipping, comprising an airbag vest intended to be worn by the rider, said vest including at least one inflatable sheath, a pyrotechnically-triggered gas generator for example, a gas cartridge and an electronic unit connected to the gas generator and allowing triggering the inflation of the sheath. This system is remarkable in that it comprises a motion sensor intended to be installed on the horse and configured to detect a fall of the latter, and in that said motion sensor is connected to the electronic unit of the airbag vest so as to trigger the inflation of the sheath in case of detection of a fall of the horse.

Therefore, when the rider is not ejected off the horse in case of fall of the latter, the motion sensor which is directly installed therein allows triggering the airbag to mitigate any crushing of the rider by the horse which would fall over him/her.

In a particularly advantageous manner, the motion sensor is configured to detect a fall of the horse by measuring an angular position of said horse according to at least one axis, preferably according to two perpendicular axes.

Indeed, the angular position of the horse is a reliable indicator of the occurrence of a fall because beyond a given angle, common movable vehicles (horses, motorcycles, etc.) stall and the fall (or the crash) becomes unavoidable.

More particularly, the motion sensor is configured to detect a fall of the horse when the value of an angle of lateral or longitudinal inclination is larger than or equal to a predetermined limit value.

This limit value corresponds to a threshold beyond which the motion sensor signals the fall to the electronic unit so that it triggers the airbag.

According to one aspect, the motion sensor comprises a gyrometer and an accelerometer.

The presence of this type of sensor allows calculating both the position and the orientation of the horse by successive integrations of linear and angular accelerations.

Advantageously, the motion sensor is connected to the electronic unit by a radio-frequency type wireless link, preferably a short-range link, reducing the energy consumption of the system.

According to one aspect, the airbag vest further comprises a cable intended to be detachably connected to the horse, said cable triggering the inflation of the sheath when it detaches from the vest.

Thus, the airbag may also be triggered by the cable as is common in existing airbags. Hence, this allows triggering the airbag both in case of ejection of the rider and in case of non-ejection of the rider.

In order to reduce the energy consumption of the motion sensor, the latter may remain inactive when the vest is connected to the horse by the cable.

Advantageously, the protection system further comprises automatic activation means configured to activate the motion sensor only when the latter is installed on the horse. Such means may be integrated into the motion sensor or into the electronic unit.

According to another aspect, the protection system further comprises a motion sensor installed on the airbag and being connected to the electronic unit and configured to detect a fall of the rider.

Thus, this additional sensor can determine the movement of the rider wearing the vest and be accurately configured to detect a fall of the rider, either on the basis of its own measurements or on the basis of a correlation analysis between its own measurements and the measurements of the motion sensor installed on the horse.

In particular, the configuration of the different motion sensors can be based on machine learning (Machine Learning) by gathering fall detection data from different users.

According to a variant of the last aspect, the airbag vest does not comprise a cable intended to be connected to the horse and to trigger the inflation of the sheath. This allows overcoming the constraints associated with the use of a cable for triggering the airbag.

In the case of application to equestrian sports, the protection system according to the disclosure may advantageously comprise a saddle on which the motion sensor is installed, for example at the rear of the latter at the level of the cantle.

The fundamental concepts of the disclosure having just been described in their most elementary form, other details and features will appear more clearly upon reading the following description and with reference to the appended drawings, giving as a non-limiting example an aspect of a rider protection system comprising an airbag vest connected to a sensor for detecting a fall of the horse, in accordance with the principles of the disclosure.

It should be noted that some technical elements well-known to a person skilled in the art are reminded herein to avoid any insufficiency or ambiguity in understanding of the present description.

In the aspect described hereinafter, reference is made to a protection system comprising an airbag vest connected to a fall sensor, intended primarily for equestrian sports to protect riders in the event of a fall. This non-limiting example is given for a better understanding of the disclosure and does not exclude the use of the protection system by any other sportsman or occasional user using any movable vehicle (horse, motorbike, snowmobile, etc.) insofar as the movable vehicle might fall on the user in the event of an accident.

In the present description, the expression “airbag vest” refers to a garment cut into a vest, for protecting a user, in particular a rider, comprising one or more inflatable sheath(s) that could be activated by pyrotechnic triggering, for example; an object is said “connected” when it is equipped with means able to communicate, in a standalone manner, with other objects connected by a wired link and/or over a wireless network.

shows a protection systemequipping a riderand his/her horse, and comprising an airbag vestintended to be worn by the rider and a motion sensorfastened on a saddleand connected via a wireless link to the airbag vestto control triggering thereof.

Indeed, the airbagis equipped with an inner inflatable sheath which inflates when the motion sensordetects an unavoidable fall of the horsecorresponding to an extreme angular position that the horse cannot recover, to restore balance thereof, because of its anatomy and more particularly of its locomotor apparel.

Thus, when the riderremains hooked to the horsewhich is falling on its back, for example, the airbag vestis triggered to make up a protection which will dampen the impact and will limit the effects on the rider.

Of course, when in his/her fall, the rideris ejected off the horse, the airbag vestis triggered, in a conventional manner, thanks to a cableconnecting said vest to the saddle.

This situation is shown inwherein a distance D is indicated and corresponds to an activation, or triggering distance of the gas generator and therefore of the airbag. As long as the distance between the fastening points of the cableon the airbagand on the saddleremains shorter than the activation distance D, the cable is not detached from the vest and the airbag is not triggered. The activation distance D should be sufficient so as not to constrain the normal movements of the rideron his/her horseduring the practice of his/her discipline.

shows, according to one aspect, the airbag vestwhich may be worn alone or with a jacket above such as a riding competition jacket. The airbagmay also be removably or permanently integrated into a jacket.

The airbag vestmainly comprises an inflatable sheath, not visible in the figure but which is located in a suitable pocket sewn in the vest, a pyrotechnically-triggered gas generator, a gas cartridgeconnected to the gas generator, an electronic boardand the cableconnecting said board to the saddle.

Thus, when a riderwearing the airbag vest, with the cableattached, is ejected far enough from the saddleso that the cableis detached, this detachment triggers the inflation of the sheath integrated into the vest via the gas generatorwhich strikes the gas cartridgeto release the gas and inflate said sheath.

Of course, the inflation of the sheath may be chemically triggered, for example by means of a propellant like in automotive airbags.

Complementarily, when the horsefalls and the rider remains on the saddle, thereby preventing the cablefrom detaching from the vest, the motion sensortriggers the inflation of the sheath by detecting an overpass of a limit angle which corresponds to an abnormal orientation of the horse and the start of an unavoidable fall.

illustrates such a fall.