A tread portion of a pneumatic tire includes a columnar wear measurement magnet that has magnetic flux density or magnetic field strength formed thereby decreased due to wear thereof along with wear of tread rubber of the tread portion and a columnar reference magnet provided at a position where the columnar reference magnet is not worn with the wear of the tread rubber. The wear measurement magnet and the reference magnet extend from a tread surface side toward a tire cavity region of the pneumatic tire, and an end of the reference magnet on the tread surface side is located farther from a tread surface where the tread portion contacts the ground than an end of the wear measurement magnet on the tread surface side.

Electrical connectors mountable on wheels are described. An electrical connector may include a sleeve sized for mounting on a barrel of a wheel. The sleeve defines one or more channels. The electrical connector may also include one or more hollow spokes mechanically coupled with the sleeve, and one or more electrical conductors. An electrical conductor extends from a portion of the sleeve corresponding to a bead seat region through the one or more channels and a hollow spoke for electrically coupling with an electrical module positioned on a tread region of a tire mounted on the wheel. Electrical devices including such electrical connectors and electrical devices including other electrical connectors are also described.

The present invention relates to a system and method for measuring the length of a footprint of a tyre (10).

The system comprises a first electronic device (1) and a second electronic device (2), each of which is configured at least to acquire, filter, store and sent data, and a processing unit (3), external to said electronic devices (1, 2), configured at least to receive and process the data sent by each electronic device (1, 2), to measure the length of a footprint on the basis of an angle (β) arranged between a first axis (B1) passing through the centre (O) of the tyre (10) and a first contact point (CP1) between a portion of said tyre (10) and the ground and a second axis (B2) passing through the centre of the tyre (10) and a second contact point (CP2) between said portion of said tyre (10) and the ground.

A pneumatic tire includes a transponder extending along a circumferential direction embedded between a position (P1) located on an outer side of and 15 mm away from an upper end of a bead core in a radial direction and a position (P2) located on an inner side of and 5 mm away from an end of a belt layer in the radial direction, and a tire inner surface in which a release agent layer made of a release agent is formed has a surface electric resistivity of 10.sup.9 Ω.Math.cm to 10.sup.15 Ω.Math.cm. The transponder extending along the circumferential direction is embedded between the position (P1) and the position (P2), and the amount of silicon of the release agent at least in the tire inner surface corresponding to an embedment section for the transponder is 10.0 wt % or less or a thickness of the release agent is 100 μm or less.

This invention relates to tire tread wear monitoring. A sacrificial magnet portion is arranged in a tread of the tire so that it undergoes wear along with the tread and generates a useful magnetic field signal indicative of remaining tread thickness. With a magnetic field sensor arranged on or in the tire, an overall magnetic field signal is measured, which includes the useful magnetic field signal, and a superimposed interfering magnetic field signal generated by magnetizable material contained in the tire. A non-sacrificial magnet portion is used to saturate the magnetizable material at least locally so as to make the interfering magnetic field signal sensed by the magnetic field sensor substantially independent of the useful magnetic field signal sensed by the magnetic field sensor. Further aspects of the invention relate to tires, e.g., vehicle tires, featuring a tire tread wear monitoring system.

An apparatus for estimating a tire resonance frequency may include a sensor for detecting rotation of a tone wheel; and a signal processor for calculating the detected rotation to produce a corrected wheel speed, filtering the corrected wheel speed in a predetermined manner to produce a filtered wheel speed from which engine noise is removed, and estimating a resonance frequency of a tire using the filtered wheel speed.

A tire information acquisition device includes: a sensor unit mountable on a tire inner surface and including a sensor configured to acquire tire information; and a power supply unit mountable on a wheel. The power supply unit includes a power supply mechanism configured to supply power to the sensor unit in a non-contact manner. The sensor unit includes: a power reception mechanism configured to receive power from the power supply unit in a non-contact manner; and an information transmission unit configured to wirelessly transmit acquired tire information.

A tire wear amount estimation system includes a step of acquiring a strain signal output from a strain sensor provided on the inner side surface or inside of the pneumatic tire, and a step of estimating the wear state of the tread portion of the pneumatic tire based on the strain signal output at the timing of kicking out from the road surface of the ground contact area of the tread portion corresponding to the strain sensor and a reference value of the strain signal.

A tire suitable for running flat comprises a crown, two sidewalls and two beads, a carcass reinforcement with at least one carcass ply anchored in each bead and a sidewall insert placed axially internally relative to at least the carcass ply, wherein the tire is equipped with an electronic device comprising at least one radiofrequency transponder and wherein, each bead comprising a bead wire of revolution about a reference axis and H being one of the points of the bead wire closest to the axis of revolution, the electronic device is placed axially in a zone of the tire bounded by at least one of the beads and one of the sidewalls and radially externally at a radial distance larger than 20 mm from the point H.

A processing device (120) of a tire state detection system (100) is provided with an acceleration data acquisition unit (123) for acquiring the acceleration data detected by an acceleration sensor (111) at every predetermined acquisition interval, an acceleration data extraction unit (125) for extracting the maximum acceleration data indicating at least the maximum acceleration and the intermediate acceleration data indicating the intermediate acceleration excluding the minimum acceleration data indicating the minimum acceleration from 3 or more acceleration data acquired sequentially, and a calculation unit (127) for executing an calculation using the extracted intermediate acceleration data.