Tire or wheel for use on a vehicle, machine, equipment, toy or the like. The tire or wheel has an illuminable feature including at least one optical fiber.

This application relates generally to sensor systems and, more particularly, relates to systems and methods for management of smart wheel sensors that collect actionable sensor data from a rotatable component of a vehicle's wheel. In certain embodiments, a system includes a vehicle body; a rotatable component configured to rotate relative to the vehicle body; an energy harvesting component disposed along a circumference of the rotatable component, wherein the energy harvesting component is configured to generate electric power based on a force to the rotatable component; a sensor configured to produce sensor data by using the electric power while disposed on the rotatable component; and at least one processor disposed within the vehicle body, the at least one processor configured to perform an action within the vehicle body based on a parameter value meeting a threshold value, wherein the parameter value is based on the sensor data.

A method which includes obtaining a plurality of images of tires that differ from one another in either one of or both of a tire type and a tire condition, the obtained images being regarded as teacher images; converting the teacher images into a size of a predetermined number of pixels; learning by a convolutional neural network using data of the plurality of converted teacher images as learning images, and setting parameters of the convolutional neural network; obtaining a tire image of a recognition-target tire and converting the obtained tire image into a size identical to that of the teacher images; and inputting the converted tire image of the recognition-target tire to the convolutional neural network and determining either one of or both of the type and the condition of the recognition-target tire.

A tire having structures used to notify a driver, passenger, or other observer that a tire tread has worn to a predetermined limit is disclosed. Lattice plies, lattices, meshes, and/or films which are disposed within a tire produce an audible signal that indicates a tire tread has worn to a predetermined limit. The lattice plies, lattices, meshes, and/or films may be used a variety of tire applications.

A tire damage detection method includes a preliminary stage comprising: performing tests involving test tire impacts against/on different obstacles at different motor vehicle speeds; measuring/acquiring test-related wheel speeds during the performed tests; computing test-related normalized wheel speeds based on the test-related wheel speeds; and determining a predefined tire damage model based on the test-related normalized wheel speeds corresponding to the test tire impacts and of associated test-related average wheel speeds. A tire damage detection stage comprises: acquiring signals indicative of a motor vehicle wheel speed; computing, based on 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 detecting potential damage to a tire of the wheel based on the predefined tire damage model and on the normalized wheel speed.

The present invention provides a non-pneumatic tire including an inner tube (6) attachable to an axle (15a), an outer tube (4) configured to surround the inner tube from an outer side in a tire radial direction, and an elastically deformable connecting member (3) configured to connect the inner tube and the outer tube to each other, the non-pneumatic tire including at least one of a detection section configured to detect occurrences of scratching, damage, or deterioration in the non-pneumatic tire; and a reporting section (33) configured to report occurrences of scratching, damage, or deterioration in the non-pneumatic tire.

An acoustic sensor for coupling with a tire pressure monitoring system to generally detect an acoustic signal corresponding to a noise generated by a tire as the tire travels across a road surface. The detected signal can be used by various vehicle system to generally determine tire tread wear or depth and for use in active noise cancelling within the vehicle.

An abnormality monitoring system includes gas sensors provided in the cavity or the vicinity of a tire provided in a vehicle, a determination unit that determines the presence of an abnormality in the tire on the basis of the detection results of the gas sensors, and an output unit that outputs data based on the determination result of the determination unit. The gas sensors detect a volatile substance when abnormal heat build-up occurs in the tire. The volatile substance is a substance derived from an additive added when a tire is manufactured.

A tire operation service system includes a tire information monitoring device to monitor information on a tire and detect position information and unique identifying information, a tire operation server including a user information database stored with user information corresponding to the identifying information and a shop information database stored with position information on each shop and connected to the tire information monitoring device via a communication network, and a shop terminal and a user terminal connected to the tire operation server via a communication network, wherein the tire operation server includes a user information extraction unit, a nearby shop extraction unit, a shop-with-handling-ability extraction unit, and a shop information transmission unit.

A guide wheel (33) for guiding a vehicle along a track is equipped with an annular tread section (61) that comes into contact with a guide rail extending along the track and a pair of sidewall sections (62) that are formed continuing from both edges of the tread section (61) in the axial direction and extend inward in the radial direction, said guide wheel (33) being characterized in that protrusions (63a, 63b) are formed over the entire circumference of each of the sidewall sections (62).