RF TRANSMISSION METHOD AND APPARATUS IN A TIRE PRESSURE MONITORING SYSTEM

• US 20160243905A1
• Filed: 02/20/2015
• Published: 08/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. (Continental AG)
• Original Assignee: Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. (Continental AG)
• Inventors: McIntyre, Matthew D., Deniau, Jean-Christophe, Farrell, Brian, Gad, Yasser
• Granted Patent: US 9,517,664 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/02 Signalling devices actuated by tyre pressure hand-held tyre pressure gauges G01L17/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0455 Transmission control of wireless signals
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0462 Structure of transmission protocol
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/18 Protocol analysers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/225 Calculation of statistics, e.g. average, variance

Abstract

In some aspects, a plurality of frames to be transmitted is assembled. The averaging factor is determined for each frame. Each frame is transmitted with the averaging power determined for each frame and not with the worst case averaging power from the plurality of frames.

Claims

1. A method of increasing transmission performance between a tire pressure monitoring (TPM) sensor and a receiver in a vehicle, the method comprising:

assembling a plurality of frames to be transmitted;

determining the averaging factor for each frame;

transmitting each frame with the averaging factor determined for each frame and not with the worst case averaging factor from the plurality of frames.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each frame is transmitted to a receiver in the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the receiver makes a decision as to whether the pressure is below a predetermined threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the frames has a protocol of a different automobile manufacturer.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the frames are transmitted at approximately 315 Mhz or at approximately 433.92 Mhz.

6. A method of increasing transmission performance between a tire pressure monitoring sensor and a receiver in a vehicle, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of frames to be transmitted, each of the plurality of frames being separated by a first inter frame timing distance;

determining the averaging factor for each of the plurality of frames, and a worst case averaging factor;

determining a second inter frame timing distance that separates each of the plurality of frames, the second inter frame timing distance being less than the first inter frame timing distance;

assembling the frames into a transmission burst and separating these frames with the second inter frame timing distance;

inserting an additional frame into the transmission burst;

transmitting each of the frames of the transmission burst with the worst case averaging factor.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the additional frame is duplicative of one of the first frames.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the additional frame includes additional information from the first frames.

9. A method of increasing transmission performance between a tire pressure monitoring sensor and a receiver in a vehicle, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of frames to be transmitted each of the frames being separated by a first inter frame timing distance;

determining an averaging factor for each frame, a worst case averaging factor, and a frame associated with the worst case averaging factor;

assembling the frames to be transmitted into a transmission burst;

inserting additional bits into the preamble of selected frames in the transmission burst;

transmitting the transmission burst with the averaging power determined for the worst case averaging power from the plurality of frames.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the selected frames do not have the worst case averaging factor.

11. An apparatus configured to increase transmission performance between a tire pressure monitoring (TPM) sensor and a receiver in a vehicle, the apparatus comprising:

an interface with an input and output, the input configured to receive a plurality of frames to be transmitted;

a controller coupled to the interface, the controller configured to determine an averaging factor for each frame and to transmit at the output each frame with the averaging factor determined for each frame and not with the worst case averaging factor from the plurality of frames.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the controller is configured to transmit each frame to a receiver in the vehicle.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the receiver makes a decision as to whether the pressure is below a predetermined threshold.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein each of the frames has a protocol of a different automobile manufacturer.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the frames are transmitted at approximately 315 Mhz or at approximately 433.92 Mhz.

16. An apparatus configured to increase transmission performance between a tire pressure monitoring sensor and a receiver in a vehicle, the method comprising:

an interface with an input and an output, the input configured to receive a plurality of frames, each of the frames being separated by a first inter frame timing distance;

a controller coupled to the interface, the controller configured to determine the averaging factor for each of the plurality of frames and a worst case averaging factor, the controller configured to determine a second inter frame timing distance that separates each of the plurality of frames, the second inter frame timing distance being less than the first inter frame timing distance, the controller configured to assemble the frames into a transmission burst and separate these frames with the second inter frame timing distance, the controller configured to insert an additional frame into the transmission burst and transmit the transmission burst at the output of the interface, each frame of the transmission burst being transmitted with the worst case averaging factor of the plurality of frames.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the additional frame is duplicative of one of the first frames.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the additional frame includes additional information from the first frames.

19. An apparatus configured to increase transmission performance between a tire pressure monitoring sensor and a receiver in a vehicle, the apparatus comprising:

an interface with an input and an output, the input configured to receive a plurality of frames to be transmitted, each of the first frames being separated by a first inter frame timing distance;

a controller coupled to the interface, the controller configured to determine an averaging factor for each frame, a worst case averaging factor for the plurality of frames, and the frame associated with the worst case averaging factor, the controller configured to assemble the first frames to be transmitted into a transmission burst, the controller configured to insert additional bits into the preamble of selected frames in the transmission burst and to transmit the transmission burst at the output with the worst case averaging power.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the selected frames do not have the worst case averaging factor.