Automobile tire monitoring system and tire identification method

• US 20060187014A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 08/24/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Baolong Huf Shanghai Electronic Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Shanghai Baolong Industries Company Limited
• Inventors: Li, Wei, Chen, Hongling
• Granted Patent: US 7,414,523 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/447
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0401 characterised by the type of alarm
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0416 allocating a corresponding wheel position on vehicle, e.g. front/left or rear/right
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0433 Radio signals

Abstract

A kind of automobile tire pressure monitoring system and tire identification method consist of a transmitting & detecting unit, with one set on each tire, as well as a receiving & displaying unit including a receiving unit, a main control unit and a displaying unit. A plug-in encoding memory is plugged into the receiving & displaying unit. One fixed ID code, which is the same as that for the above encoding memory, is available for each transmitting & detecting unit. When the power is on, the receiving & displaying unit reads the ID code in each plug-in encoding memory plugged into the socket of the displaying unit, and saves the information on the corresponding relationships between ID codes saved in memories and the tire identity. After receiving the signal from the transmission unit, it reads the ID codes in it, and judges whether these codes are identical with those in memories. If the signal is valid, the receiving & displaying unit compares the corresponding relationships, judges on which tire the detection unit is transmitting the signal, and displays the information about pressure and temperature on corresponding areas.

Claims

1. An automobile tire monitoring system that comprises:

a plurality of transmitting and detecting units each separately provided on a different tire of a vehicle and each transmitting and detecting unit including a sensor, a controlling and transmitting circuit and a transmitting antenna; and

a common receiving and display unit that includes a receiving unit, a main control unit and a display unit, the receiving and display unit comprises several plug-in code memories, each of the plug-in code memory has a fixed ID code,

each transmitting and detecting unit has a fixed ID code which corresponds to the ID code fixed in one of said several plug-in code memories.

2. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 1 wherein the sensor comprises at least one of a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor.

3. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 2 wherein each of the transmitting and detecting units acquires an electrical signal from the sensor, then encodes the acquired signal after the acquired signal has been magnified and processed by an A/D converter so that a resulting data code and ID code are in an ordered format format are generated and then transmitted after modulating and magnifying the resulting coded and formatted signal.

4. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 2 wherein the receiving circuit in the receiving and display unit comprises a power circuit, a receiving circuit and a data receiving interface circuit, and the receiving circuit extracts ID code information received from the transmitting and detecting units and transmits the ID code to a MCU via the data receiving interface circuit.

5. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 2 wherein the receiving unit of receiving and display unit comprises a code plug interface circuit, a data displaying interface circuit and an alarm circuit.

6. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 2 wherein each of the code memories is positioned in a code plug and has a socket for the code plug, the socket is provided in the display unit of the receiving and display unit.

7. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the code memories comprise shift type code memories.

8. The automobile tire monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the code memories comprise matrix type memories.

9. The automobile monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the code memories comprise at least one of a switch matrix type memory, a diode matrix, type memory, a MOS tube matrix type memory and a transistor matrix type memory.

10. An automobile tire monitoring method which comprises the following steps:

a) providing the automobile tire pressure monitoring of claim 1;

b) starting and initializing the system;

c) reading in ID codes from the plug-in code memories;

d) establishing and saving a corresponding relationship between the read in ID codes and tire identification;

e) receiving data from at least one of the transmitting and detecting units;

e) determining whether an ID code in received data corresponds to one of the read in ID codes;

f) if the ID code in the received date does not match one of the read in ID codes discard the received data and wait to receive more data from at least one of the transmitting and detecting units;

g) if the ID code in the received date does matches one of the read in ID codes, display information in the received data; and

h) continue monitoring tire pressure by repeating steps e) through h).

11. The monitoring method according to claim 10, further comprising providing an alarm circuit and activating an alarm when sensed tire pressure is outside of a predetermined range.

12. The monitoring method according to claim 10, wherein the data transmitted by the transmitting and detecting units is acquired by the sensors and magnified and converted by an A/D converter and encoded together with fixed ID code in the respective transmitting and detecting unit and, then transmitted via an antenna after modulating and magnifying the transmission signal.