Overview
- The U.S. patent application, published April 23, 2026 as US 2026/0109316 A1, details a “System and Method for Verifying Proper Usage of Passenger Restraints.”
- The design uses seat-mounted cameras and machine learning with seat, clasp, and rotary‑encoder sensors to judge whether belts, lap bars, or harnesses are fastened as intended and to flag mismatches between video and sensor data.
- The system can prevent dispatch, alert operators to a problem seat, and detect if a rider unbuckles after launch to trigger an immediate response.
- By checking every seat at once and only flagging issues, the tool could cut load time and let Cast Members focus on fixing specific seats rather than walking an entire vehicle.
- Disney has tried camera‑assisted views before on DINOSAUR and used seatbelt indicator boards on Star Tours, but coverage notes those relied on human checks and that patents often never reach parks without testing and phased pilots.