Trade the Inflator for a Dial: Inside the Microsys Cold Gas System

Every airbag module program eventually runs into the same obstacle: the inflator itself. It is pyrotechnic, it varies unit to unit, it is expensive, it is consumed in a single shot, and you cannot turn it up or down to see what a design change actually does. For most of a development cycle, what an engineer really needs is not a live inflator at all — it is a repeatable, adjustable gas source that behaves like one. That is the Microsys Cold Gas System.

An inflator you can program

The Cold Gas System inflates an airbag using compressed gas instead of pyrotechnics, generating pressure curves that replicate real inflator performance across the full spectrum — from the extremely fast units behind side and curtain airbags to the high-volume inflators used on the passenger side. It is driven by a patented Microsys ultra-fast, high-throughput valve, together with a proprietary electronic firing valve that fully opens within 2 ms of the trigger pulse — quick enough to reproduce the aggressive onset of a live deployment. Gas quantity is adjustable from 0.5 to 8 moles, with an independent speed adjustment that spans the full range of known inflators, and the system reproduces both single-stage and dual-stage profiles. Pyrotechnic, hybrid, and compressed-gas inflators can all be stood in for by the same unit, at roughly 1% repeatability shot to shot.

The Microsys Cold Gas System

Why teams replace the inflator with it

That repeatability is the whole point. When you fire live inflators during module development, unit-to-unit variability rides along with every result, and you are never quite sure whether a shift in deployment came from your design or from the inflator lot. Substitute the Cold Gas System and that variable disappears: engineers can hold the input constant, or deliberately dial speed and pressure up and down to see exactly how the cushion, tether, or instrument panel responds — something that is simply impossible to do with one-shot live inflators.

The economics follow directly. Consumables for the Cold Gas System cost a small fraction of a prototype inflator, and because it eliminates the majority of the prototype inflators a program would otherwise burn through, design cycles get both shorter and cheaper. Instrument panel, seat, and cushion suppliers use it the same way to cut the cost of R&D and of LAT/COP production testing — and with no pyrotechnic charge in the loop, the whole exercise is safer and cleaner to run.

From development tool to specification

The Cold Gas System also closes the loop back to the inflator itself. Once a module's deployment behavior is right, the system's output can be captured as a specification: connect it to a Microsys test tank — typically 28.3L or 60L — and adjust the settings until the tank's pressure-time curve matches the target. That curve then becomes the performance specification handed to the inflator supplier. Used this way, the same tool that replaced the inflator during development is what defines the inflator the production line will ultimately require.

Part of the same toolchain

The Cold Gas System calibrates against Microsys iTank test tanks and feeds the same PowerPlay analysis environment used across the rest of the occupant-safety lab, so cold-gas results sit alongside live inflator, deployment, and crash data in one place rather than a separate silo.

For module developers, interior and seat suppliers, and inflator engineers alike, the Cold Gas System turns a consumable, variable, single-shot device into a repeatable instrument you can actually tune — faster, cheaper, and safer than firing the real thing.

To evaluate the Cold Gas System for your program, or to pair it with an iTank and SureFire, contact the Microsys team.