Monitoring tires of vehicles via personal area networks

• US 10,093,138 B2
• Filed: 02/14/2017
• Issued: 10/09/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: DeCia, Nunzio, Herman, David A, Dutta, Arun
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang, Quan-Zhen
• Assistant Examiner(s): BURGDORF, STEPHEN R
• Application Number:
  US15/432,844
• Publication Number:
  US 20180229560A1
• Time in Patent Office: 602 Days
• Field of Search: 340422
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/02 Signalling devices actuated by tyre pressure hand-held tyre pressure gauges G01L17/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0416 allocating a corresponding wheel position on vehicle, e.g. front/left or rear/right
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0444 Antenna structures, control or arrangements thereof, e.g. for directional antennas, diversity antenna, antenna multiplexing or antennas integrated in fenders
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/045 Means for detecting electromagnetic field changes being not part of the signal transmission per se, e.g. strength, direction, propagation or masking
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0486 comprising additional sensors in the wheel or tyre mounted monitoring device, e.g. movement sensors, microphones or earth magnetic field sensors

Abstract

Method and apparatus are disclosed for monitoring tires of vehicles via personal area networks. An example vehicle includes a body, nodes spaced apart on the body, a tire, a transceiver coupled to the tire, and a tire detector. The tire detector is to determine a tire position based on wireless communication between the transceiver and the nodes, identify a duration that the tire is at the tire position, and present a warning to rotate the tire position when the duration is greater than a predetermined threshold.

Claims

1. A vehicle comprising:

a body;

a gyroscope;

a speed sensor;

nodes;

a tire;

a transceiver coupled to the tire;

a GPS receiver to identify a vehicle location;

a camera to monitor vehicle surroundings; and

a tire detector to;

determine a tire position based on wireless communication between the transceiver and the nodes;

identify a duration that the tire is at the tire position;

present a warning for tire rotation when the duration exceeds a threshold;

reduce the threshold upon detecting a sharp turn via the gyroscope and the speed sensor;

determine whether the tire is decoupled from the body based on the wireless communication between the transceiver and the nodes;

present a second warning when the tire is decoupled from the body; and

adjust a rate at which the nodes broadcast beacons for the transceiver based on the vehicle location and the vehicle surroundings to facilitate monitoring for decoupling of the vehicle.

2. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein, to determine the tire position, the tire detector determines distances between the transceiver and the nodes.

3. The vehicle of claim 2, wherein, to enable the tire detector to determine the distances, the nodes broadcast the beacons and the transceiver sends received signal strength indicators to the respective nodes upon receiving the beacons.

4. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein the nodes are wireless personal area network nodes and the transceiver is a wireless personal area network transceiver.

5. The vehicle of claim 1, further including a plurality of tires that includes the tire and a plurality of transceivers that includes the transceiver, each of the plurality of transceivers is coupled to a respective one of the plurality of tires.

6. The vehicle of claim 5, wherein the nodes are positioned on the body such that each of the plurality of transceivers is spaced apart from the nodes by different distances to facilitate identification of tire locations of the plurality of tires.

7. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein the nodes includes a first node, a second node, and a third node that are each spaced apart from a wheel well by a different respective distance to enable the tire detector to determine, via triangulation, when the tire position is at the wheel well.

8. The vehicle of claim 7, wherein the first node is positioned toward a first side and a first end of the body, the second node is positioned toward a second side and the first end of the body, and the third node is positioned toward a second end of the body to form a triangle.

9. The vehicle of claim 1, further including a communication module that is to communicatively couple to a mobile device to enable the tire detector to present the warning via the mobile device.

10. The vehicle of claim 1, further including a tire pressure sensor to measure a tire pressure of the tire, the tire detector is to present the warning further based on the tire pressure.

11. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein the gyroscope is to detect a vehicle orientation and the speed sensor is to detect a vehicle speed during turning maneuvers.

12. A method, performed by a processor, comprising:

determining a position of a tire based on wireless communication between a tire transceiver and nodes spaced apart on a vehicle body;

identifying a duration of the tire at the position;

presenting a warning for tire rotation when the duration exceeds a threshold;

monitoring turns via a gyroscope and a speed sensor; and

reducing the threshold based on detection of a sharp turn and on a tire pressure measured by a pressure sensor.

13. The method of claim 12, further including determining distances between the tire transceiver and the vehicle body nodes to determine the position of the tire by broadcasting beacons via the vehicle body nodes and sending respective received signal strength indicators via the tire transceiver.

14. The method of claim 12, further including determining the position of the tire via triangulation by determining a first distance between the tire transceiver and a first of the vehicle body nodes, a second distance between the tire transceiver and a second of the vehicle body nodes, and a third distance between the tire transceiver and a third of the vehicle body nodes.

15. The method of claim 12, further including communicatively coupling to a mobile device via a communication module to enable the mobile device to present the warning via the mobile device.

16. A vehicle comprising:

a gyroscope;

a speed sensor;

nodes;

a tire;

a tire pressure sensor to measure a tire pressure of the tire;

a transceiver coupled to the tire; and

a tire detector to;

determine a tire position based on wireless communication between the transceiver and the nodes;

identify a duration that the tire is at the tire position;

present a warning for tire rotation when the duration exceeds a threshold and further based on a tire pressure measurement; and

reduce the threshold upon detecting a sharp turn via the gyroscope and the speed sensor and in response to determining, via the tire pressure sensor, that the tire is overinflated.

17. The vehicle of claim 16, wherein the tire detector receives the tire pressure measurement via the transceiver and the nodes.

18. The vehicle of claim 16, wherein the tire detector is to:

determine whether the tire is decoupled from a body of the vehicle based on the wireless communication between the transceiver and the nodes; and

present a second warning when the tire is decoupled from the body.