Indirect tire wear state prediction system and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9873293-B2
Application number	US-201514918928-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 21, 2015
Priority date	Oct 21, 2015
Publication date	Jan 23, 2018
Grant date	Jan 23, 2018

Abstract

A tire wear state estimation system estimates forces and sliding velocity generated in a tire contact patch, determines frictional energy from the tire force and sliding velocity, and generates an estimate of tire wear state based upon the frictional work done by the tire. A tire wear estimate, pursuant to the system and methodology, is made by determining the amount of frictional work performed by the tire through the integrated use of tire-mounted, GPS sourced, and vehicle-mounted sensor information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A tire wear state estimation system comprising:
a plurality of tires supporting a vehicle;
a plurality of tire-mounted devices provided on at least one tire of the plurality of tires operable to supply tire-specific contact dynamics information;
at least one inertial measurement unit operable to supply sliding velocity information from a tire contact patch formed by the at least one tire rolling over a ground surface;
an ambient condition monitoring system operable to supply ambient condition information;
a tire force and sliding velocity estimator operable to determine a tire force estimate and a tire sliding velocity estimate from the tire-specific contact dynamics information and the sliding velocity information;
a tire frictional energy estimator operable to estimate tire frictional energy from the tire force estimate and the tire sliding velocity estimate;
a tire frictional work estimator operable to determine a tire frictional work estimate from the tire frictional energy estimate; and
a tire wear rate estimator operable to generate a tire wear rate estimate from the tire frictional work estimate and the ambient condition information.

2. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 1 , wherein the tire-mounted devices comprise:
at least one pressure-measuring sensor affixed to the at least one tire operable to supply by a data transmission measured tire inflation pressure data;
a tire identification transponder affixed to the at least one tire operable to supply by data transmission tire-specific identification data; and
a tire temperature sensor affixed to the at least one tire operable to supply by data transmission measured tire temperature data.

3. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 1 , wherein the ambient condition information comprises at least one condition from the group consisting of ambient weather condition, road surface roughness and ambient temperature.

4. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 3 , wherein the ambient condition monitoring system comprises a global positioning system operable to transmit the ambient condition information to the tire wear rate estimator.

5. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 1 , wherein the inertial measurement unit comprises at least one vehicle-mounted and CAN-bus accessible sensor operable to make a three axes of rotation rate measurement and a three axes of acceleration measurement.

6. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 1 , wherein the inertial measurement unit comprises a hand-held phone equipped with an application program operable to make a three axes of rotation rate measurement and a three axes of acceleration measurement.

7. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 1 , wherein the tire wear rate estimator operably generates the tire wear rate estimate from a correlation of the tire wear state to the frictional work estimate adjusted by a plurality of abrasion compensation parameters.

8. The tire wear estimation system of claim 7 , wherein the abrasion compensation parameters include tire-specific construction characteristics, road-surface characteristics, ambient temperature characteristics, and road surface interfacial contaminant condition characteristics.

9. A tire wear state estimation system comprising:
a plurality of tires supporting a vehicle;
a plurality of tire-mounted devices provided on at least one tire of the plurality of tires operable to supply tire-specific information affecting tire contact patch dynamics;
at least one inertial measurement unit operable to supply sliding velocity information from a tire contact patch formed by the at least one tire rolling over a ground surface;
a friction work estimator operable to calculate a friction work estimate done by the at least one tire from the tire-specific information and the sliding velocity information;
a tire wear rate estimator operable to generate a tire wear rate estimation from drawing a proportional correlation between an abradability factor of the at least one tire and the calculated friction work estimate.

10. The tire wear state estimation system according to claim 9 , wherein the tire wear rate estimator in generating the tire wear rate estimation operably employs externally supplied abrasion-impacting information influencing abrasion characteristics of at least one material composing the at least one tire.

11. The tire wear state estimation system according to claim 10 , wherein the tire-specific information comprise at least one tire characteristic taken from the group consisting of tire inflation pressure, tire temperature, tire material composition hardness, tire material composition molecular structure, tire material composition elongation at break, tire material composition wear resistance, tire material composition degree of vulcanization, tire material composition carbon black content.

12. The tire wear state estimation system according to claim 10 wherein the abrasion-impacting information comprises at least one external characteristic taken from the group consisting of road surface smoothness, road surface grading condition, road surface composition, ambient air temperature, road surface temperature and presence of interfacial contaminants on the road surface.

13. The tire wear state estimation system of claim 9 , wherein the friction work estimator includes a tire force estimator and sliding velocity estimator operable to respectively generate a tire force estimate and a sliding velocity estimate from the tire-specific information and the sliding velocity information.

14. A method of making a tire wear state estimation comprising:
supporting a vehicle by a plurality of tires;
mounting a plurality of tire-specific information-providing devices to at least one tire of the plurality of tires operable to supply tire-specific information affecting tire contact patch dynamics;
utilizing at least one inertial measurement unit to supply sliding velocity information from a tire contact patch formed by the at least one tire rolling over a ground surface;
employing a friction work estimator operable to calculate a friction work estimate done by the at least one tire from the tire-specific information and the sliding velocity information;
employing a tire wear rate estimator operable to generate a tire wear rate estimation from drawing a proportional correlation between an abradability factor of the at least one tire and the calculated friction work estimate.

15. The method of making a tire wear state estimation according to claim 14 , further comprising:
employing a tire force estimator operable to generate a tire force estimate for the tire contact patch; and
employing a sliding velocity estimator operable to generate a sliding velocity estimate for the tire contact patch from the tire-specific information and the sliding velocity information.

16. The method of making a tire wear state estimation according to claim 14 , further comprising using within the tire wear rate estimator externally supplied abrasion-impacting information influencing abrasion characteristics of at least one material composing the at least one tire.

17. The method of making a tire wear state estimation according to claim 16 , wherein the tire-specific information comprises tire characteristics taken from the group consisting of tire inflation pressure, tire temperature, tire material composition hardness, tire material composition molecular structure, tire material composition elongation at break, tire material composition wear resistance, tire material composition degree o

Assignees

• Goodyear Tire & Rubber

Inventors

• Singh Kanwar Bharat
• Engel Marc

Classifications

• G01M17/02

  Tyres · CPC title

• B60C23/0415

  Automatically identifying wheel mounted units, e.g. after replacement or exchange of wheels · CPC title

• B60C11/246 Primary

  Tread wear monitoring systems · CPC title

• G01S19/24

  Acquisition or tracking {or demodulation} of signals transmitted by the system {(synchronisation aspects of direct sequence spread spectrum modulation H04B1/7073)} · CPC title

• B60C23/0486

  comprising additional sensors in the wheel or tyre mounted monitoring device, e.g. movement sensors, microphones or earth magnetic field sensors · CPC title