Surround Safety Laboratories Inc. (SSL) is developing a step-wise improvement in vehicle occupant crash protection. The SSL solution is a “universal” seat-integrated, surrounding airbag which provides protection in conventional and unconventional seating orientations (rotated, reclined, and lying positions), when impacted in all directions.

The foundational idea is patent protected and exclusively licensed to SSL. Further, SSL conceived and owns a portfolio of 35 additional inventions for productization and customizing the technology for specialized applications. The primary inventor for both is the Co-Founder and CTO of SSL.

SSL will focus its product development and commercialization in two primary applications, (1) “Lie-flat” seating for long-haul airlines, and (2) swivel and/or fully reclined automotive seating.

Prior art typically provides an airbag in a finite set of vehicle locations for a forward-facing seat in standard crash modes. SSL’s technology relocates with any seat movement and features a tethering system to provide secure occupant containment thus reducing the severity of injury. The tensioning system of this cocoon better manages occupant injuries by improving control of the occupant’s head, torso, arms, and legs in real-world crash scenarios, plus non-standard seating orientations, with or without seatbelts.

In the future, we envision airline passengers being able to fully recline for sleep immediately upon boarding and remain so until door opening at the destination, providing an additional 1-1 ½ hours additional rest and relaxation during cross-continental or intercontinental long-haul flights. The SSL technology will enable airlines to meet FAA crash requirements during critical takeoff and landing flight operations.

SSL’s technology is based on the same base technologies in today’s airbags, but with unique operational characteristics. Because of this, the implementation hurdles and project risks are similar in nature to that of existing airbag technology which are successfully undertaken with every new model year and model; they have similar experience-based, foreseeable technical challenges that may arise during design finalization, validation, and implementation.

The SSL safety solution holds sizable potential for improved passenger safety, reducing severity of injuries and/or deaths in crashes in ground and air travel. SSL will pursue this dual path to commercialization – the path for premium aircraft seating will likely yield positive cash flow first, while the automotive market is expected to provide business scaling opportunity over time across a much larger market, with anticipated accelerated adoption once fully autonomous (SAE Level 4/5) travel becomes more available.

SSL’s Value Proposition and Go-to-Market approach are informed by co-founders’ deep industry experience and validated with market research conducted at industry events such as the Detroit Auto Show/AutomobiliD, various Mobility Tech events, and numerous discussions with automotive and aircraft/airline industry experts.

The technology has completed bench prototyping and demonstrated the capture concept at a fractional hardware scale, achieving Technology Readiness Level 4, satisfying a product development milestone with our OEM partner who owns the implementation Right-of-First-Refusal. SSL is also discussing collaboration with seating suppliers as we proceed with prototype development, testing and validation.