Pets are an increasing part of everyday life. As such, people are taking their pets with them in their vehicles more often. Transporting a pet or pets within a vehicle can be difficult if the pet or pets are not prevented from accessing certain areas of the vehicle at certain times. There is therefore a need for a means of containing pets into an area of the car which is safe for the pet and the occupants of the vehicle.
Currently, there are two main ways to curtail the movement of a pet within an area of a vehicle. The first type is a manually installed and adjusted barrier which may be erected and adjusted by hand. This provides a mechanical barrier between areas of a vehicle to restrict the animal's movement. The second type of restriction uses a harness and tether or other mechanical restraint to prevent the animal's movement. Some variations of this allow the user vary the length of the restraint tether to restrict the animal's movement based on a computerized identification tag.
While the described methods of restraining an animal within a vehicle's interior are generally effective, these both require fairly substantial user intervention in order to implement. Harnesses require that the user connect a wriggling animal to the proper restraint points, and the use of net barriers require an involved take-down procedure when not in use.
Currently, methods exist for detecting of occupants within vehicles using a variety of techniques, such as thermal, activation, weight, motion, etc. Utilizing these techniques, it is possible to detect the presence of an animal within a vehicle.
While the aforementioned examples have previously attempted to solve aspects of this problem, there has been no solution which allows for an easy, automatic, and adjustable way to contain a pet in a particular area of a vehicle.