A system for detecting the presence of an occupant of a seat. The system includes a sensing mat that includes an upper conducting layer and a lower conducting layer. At least one of the conducting layers comprises a printed electronic circuit separated into conductive zones by at least one resistive zone. The mat also includes a plurality of sensing zones and each of the sensing zones include a conductive zone from the upper conducting layer and a conductive zone from the lower conducting layer. Each of the conducting layers are connected to a controller configured to detect a change in capacitance of each of the sensing zones resulting from a change in distance between the upper conducting layer and the lower conducting layer. The controller is connected to a vehicle network and is configured to provide data to the network that indicates the absence or presence of the occupant.