CONTROL DEVICE, AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING PROTECTIVE DEVICE

To provide a control apparatus of a protection apparatus, which, with a simple configuration and excluding side face collisions as well as head-on collisions, favorably detects an offset collision or diagonal collision, and then activates a suitable protection apparatus for protecting the side or head of a passenger at a timing in accordance with the degree of collision, in addition to providing a method for controlling a protection apparatus. The control apparatus () includes: an ECU (); satellite sensors () for detecting a first acceleration in the longitudinal direction of a vehicle; and a main sensor () for detecting a second acceleration in the longitudinal direction thereof, and a third acceleration in the width direction thereof. The ECU () includes: a level calculation part for calculating a level of a front face collision based on the first acceleration and the second acceleration; a ΔVcalculation part for making an offset adjustment of ΔV obtained by integrating the third acceleration so as to attenuate ΔV of the third acceleration based on a head-on collision, in order to obtain ΔV; and a determination part for determining an offset collision or diagonal collision based on the level of the front face collision and the ΔV; and activates a side and head protection apparatus ( or ) if it is determined using the determination part that an offset collision or diagonal collision has occurred.