A tire management apparatus includes a remaining tread amount acquisition unit configured to acquire a remaining tread amount of tires, a traveling information acquisition unit configured to acquire traveling information of moving objects to which the tires are attached, a replacement time calculation unit configured to calculate a replacement time of the tires in accordance with the remaining tread amount and the traveling information, and a notification unit configured to notify a particular notification target of information on the number of the tires to be replaced at the replacement time when the number exceeds a threshold.

A system and method are provided for automatically alerting drivers to potential tread ware problems to enable them to avoid the danger hazards associated with worn treads. A tread-evaluation station is placed at a location where images of tires may be captured. Images of tires are recorded when a vehicle is at or near the tread-evaluation station. An automated analysis is performed on the images. Based on the automated analysis, tires depicted in the captured images are classified into categories of wear. The automated analysis may include a detection component trained to detect tires in images, and a classification model trained to assign a classification to the wear status of the tires identified by the detection component. The tread-evaluation station may further be trained to predict when tires that do not currently need replacing will need replacing.

A method of measuring a tread depth of a tire includes transmitting at least one radio wave from a transmitter through a tread of the tire. The at least one radio wave reflected from a road surface is received with a receiver. The tread depth of the tire is determined based on comparing the at least one radio wave reflected from the road surface with the at least one radio wave from the transmitter.

A wear state detection device includes an element configured to generate voltage based on deformation of a tread portion during tire rotation, a voltage detection unit configured to detect the voltage generated by the element, a speed detection unit configured to detect vehicle speed or tire rotation speed, a storage area configured to store waveform data over time of the voltage detected by the voltage detection unit together with the vehicle speed or the tire rotation speed detected by the speed detection unit, a calculation unit configured to calculate frequency of exceedance of a predetermined threshold value based on the waveform data in a predetermined speed range and a predetermined time period stored in the storage area, and a determination unit configured to determine a progress condition of wear of the tread portion based on the frequency of exceedance of the predetermined threshold value calculated by the calculation unit.

A tire that can suppress an unused tire from giving an impression like a worn tire as compared with a case where the brightness of a tread surface and the brightness of a bottom surface of a groove are the same is obtained. The tread portion includes a tread portion including a tread surface and a groove that partitions the tread surface; and a plurality of protrusions that protrude from a bottom surface of the groove at a height of from 0.1 mm to 1.0 mm and are arranged at an interval of from more than 0.1 mm to 1.0 mm. A ratio of a height of the protrusions to a depth of the groove (protrusion height/groove depth) is from 0.02 to 0.2 mm.

This disclosure provides a tire formed of a body having multiple plies and a tread that surrounds the body. The plies and/or the treads and/or other surfaces of the tire include one or more resonators that respond to being interrogated by an externally generated excitation signal. Multiple resonators formed of electrically-conducting materials are disposed (e.g., printed) on the plies and/or tread and/or other surfaces of the tire. Each of a group of multiple resonators can be individually configured to respond to different frequencies of the excitation signal such that the presence of a response (e.g., a measured attenuation of the excitation signal return) or lack of response (e.g., based on comparison of the excitation signal return to calibration curves) from individual ones of the multiple resonators can be combined to form a serial number that is unique to the tire or other elastomer-containing component (e.g., belts, hoses, etc.) being interrogated.

A method for estimating a degree of wear of a tire by using: an index of deformation velocity at a tire contact edge or in the vicinity of the tire contact edge, the index of deformation velocity having been calculated from magnitude of one of or both of positive and negative peaks appearing in a radial acceleration waveform obtained by differentiating a time-series waveform of tire radial acceleration detected by an acceleration sensor; a contact time ratio of contact time to tire rotation time, the contact time being a time interval between the positive peak and the negative peak, the tire rotation time being a time interval between either of positive peaks or negative peaks; and a deformation amount which is a difference between a tire radius of the tire under a non-loaded state and an effective radius of the tire during travelling.

A tire groove depth display method includes a grounded part extracting step, a groove depth calculating step, an image generating step, and a displaying step. The grounded part extracting step extracts a grounded part on a surface of a tread part of a tire as a plurality of areas sandwiching a tire groove. The groove depth calculating step calculates a depth of the tire groove between respective areas of the grounded part. The image generating step generates an image that shows the areas extracted by the grounded part extracting step and information on the depth of the tire groove calculated by the groove depth calculating step. The displaying step displays the image generated by the image generating step.

The invention concerns a tire damage detection system (1,1A) that includes an acquisition device (11), a processing system (12,12A) and a notification device (13,13A). The acquisition device (11) is installed on board a motor vehicle (2) equipped with two or more wheels fitted with tires, is coupled to a vehicle bus (20) of the motor vehicle (2), and is configured to acquire, from the vehicle bus (20), a signal indicative of a speed of a wheel of the motor vehicle (2) and output quantities indicative of the wheel speed. The processing system (12,12A) is configured to store a predefined tire damage model and to receive, from the acquisition device (11), the quantities indicative of the wheel speed, and is programmed to compute, based on the quantities indicative of the wheel speed, a normalized wheel speed indicative of a ratio of the wheel speed to an average wheel speed indicative of motor vehicle speed, and detect a potential damage to a tire of the wheel of the motor vehicle (2) based on the predefined tire damage model and on the normalized wheel speed. The notification device (13,13A) is configured to, if a potential damage to the tire of the wheel of the motor vehicle (2) is detected by the processing system (12,12A), signal the detected potential damage to a user (3) associated with the motor vehicle (2). In particular, according to the present invention, the processing system (12) is a cloud computing system (12A) that is wirelessly and remotely connected to the acquisition device (11), while the notification device (13) is an electronic communication device (13A) associated with the user (3) and remotely connected to the cloud computing system (12A) via one or more wired and/or wireless networks.

A method for determining a tread depth of a tread of a tire during operation of a vehicle having the tire, a control device for a vehicle for determining a tread depth of a tread of a tire of the vehicle, and a system for a vehicle having such a control device and at least one electronic wheel unit, are provided. Provision is made to determine the tread depth based on a determined instantaneous dynamic wheel radius of a wheel, having the tire, of the vehicle and a determined instantaneous dynamic inside radius of the tire. In addition, at least one further first operating parameter of the tire, selected from the group including an instantaneous roadway gradient, an instantaneous vehicle drive mode and an instantaneous tire material expansion, is determined and taken into consideration.