US Patent 9631541 Capacitance-based vehicular component protection systems and configurations

A vehicular component protection system is provided that includes: a controller and a vehicular component; two electrodes electrically coupled to the controller and near the component; a shorting element coupled to the component; and a resistor electrically coupled to the element and controller. The controller activates an alarm upon detecting a change in capacitance between the electrodes or continuity between the element and the resistor. Further, the controller may activate the alarm upon detecting a change in capacitance between the electrodes that exceeds the predetermined capacitance over a predetermined time threshold. In addition, the predetermined capacitance and time threshold can be set to filter false positives caused by one or more of weather conditions, wind-driven objects, and animals.