An apparatus and method is provided that includes measuring a tire pressure for at least one tire with at least one tire pressure sensor. The tire pressure sensor has at least a first resolution for transmitting pressure information and a second resolution for transmitting pressure information that is higher than the first resolution. If a measured tire pressure is determined to be above a predetermined pressure threshold, the apparatus and method identify whether the tire pressure sensor has experienced at least one predetermined vehicle operating characteristic, and/or identify whether the tire pressure sensor has been activated by a command. The tire pressure sensor is only locked into the second resolution if the tire pressure sensor has experienced the at least one predetermined vehicle operating characteristic or if the tire pressure sensor has been activated by the command.

A method for determining the pressure of a tire of a vehicle being driven at a speed, the tire comprising, arranged in the tire, a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor. The method includes generating a library of ratios between a measurement of the output of the pressure sensor and a measurement of the output of the temperature sensor, the one or more ratios being calculated at different speeds and one ratio being measured at a speed of zero, defining a variation law representative of the variation in the ratios with respect to the acceleration experienced by the pressure sensor, measuring the output of the pressure sensor and the output of the temperature sensor, and obtaining the value of the acceleration experienced by the pressure sensor, and determining the pressure by correcting this measurement with the variation law.

A method and system for evaluating the reliability of data supplied by multi-function WFC sensors of tires of wheels of a vehicle for targeted applications, on the basis of the irregularities of the road, which use displacement data sent from the road handling adaptation equipment of the vehicle, enabling the variations in the road condition to be reflected. The system includes equipment for monitoring the wheel displacement data for adapting it to the variations of profile of the road on which it is traveling, in order to maintain a stable body position. The monitoring equipment is linked to the WFC sensors via a central processing unit which is capable of correlating data supplied by the WFC sensors and values of wheel displacement data supplied by the monitoring equipment for the purpose of weighting the values of at least one parameter obtained from the data delivered by the WFC sensors.

A tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) sensor module as provided herein includes a pressure sensor configured to measure an internal air pressure of a tire and generate tire pressure information; a transducer configured to receive a structure borne sound signal induced by sound waves; a receiver circuit electrically connected to the transducer and configured to detect the structure borne sound signal and generate a detection indication that the structure borne sound signal has been detected; a processing circuit electrically connected to the pressure sensor and the receiver circuit, and configured to receive the tire pressure information from the pressure sensor, receive the detection indication from the receiver circuit, and generate a communication signal in response to receiving the detection indication; and a transmitter electrically connected to the processing circuit and configured to transmit the communication signal.

A tire side device is provided with a vibration detection unit that outputs a detection signal corresponding to the magnitude of tire vibration, a control unit that performs to generate road surface data indicating a road surface condition that appears in the waveform of the detection signal, and a first data communication unit that transmits the road surface data. Furthermore, a vehicle body side system is provided with a second data communication unit that receives the road surface data transmitted from the first data communication unit, and a road surface determination unit that determines the condition of the road surface that the vehicle is traveling on the basis of the road surface data. In addition, sensing is performed by the control unit under different sensing conditions at the tire side device of at least one tire among a plurality of tires and the tire side device of at least one other tire among the plurality of tires, and road surface data generated on the basis of the different sensing conditions is transmitted from the first data communication unit.

A method for determining the pressure of a tire of a vehicle being driven at a speed, the tire comprising, arranged in the tire, a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor. The method includes generating a library of ratios between a measurement of the output of the pressure sensor and a measurement of the output of the temperature sensor, the one or more ratios being calculated at different speeds and .one ratio being measured at a speed of zero, defining a variation law representative of the variation in the ratios with respect to the acceleration experienced by the pressure sensor, measuring the output of the pressure sensor and the output of the temperature sensor, and obtaining the value of the acceleration experienced by the pressure sensor, and determining the pressure by correcting this measurement with the variation law.

A method for determining the start of movement of a motor vehicle equipped with a system for monitoring tire pressure of a motor vehicle. Communication between the receiver and each pressure monitoring system emitter being subjected to a Doppler effect so that a periodic component is inserted by the emitter into the signal emitted to the receiver. The method includes: acquiring the intermediate-frequency signal before demodulation by a processor to extract data carried by the radiofrequency signal, determining the FFT of the IF signal, determining the average value of the FFT of the IF signal over a preset duration, and determining whether there is a frequency deviation by comparing the instantaneous value of the fast Fourier transform to the average value of the fast Fourier transform, if so, determining whether the emitter for monitoring the pressure of a tire is moving and that the vehicle is moving.

A method and system for measuring vertical wheel impact force in real-time based on tire pressure monitoring is provided by the present invention. The system mainly includes the four modules, namely a tire pressure derotation preprocessing, a tire pressure-wheel force system identification, a calibration method, and an integrated device for tire pressure-wheel force measurement. The method uses the integrated device to collect tire pressure data in real-time. The corresponding vertical wheel impact force is obtained through the derotation preprocessing and the tire pressure-wheel force system identification, and is calibrated according to the calibration method. The present invention provides an efficient, accurate, and highly adaptable wheel force measurement solution in the theoretical aspect and device aspect, which meets the requirements for the quick evaluation of the bridge health condition. Also, the present invention has a great potential in the fields such as road safety diagnosis, automobile performance related design, etc.

A vehicle sink alert method and system that includes collecting image data, determining field conditions, calculating wheel sink depth, predicting vehicle sink events using wheel sink depth and field conditions, and activating an alert when a vehicle sink event is predicted. The method can include predicting vehicle sink events using GPS coordinates and historical vehicle sink data. The method can include determining and using vehicle motion to predict vehicle sink events. Predicting vehicle sink events can include forming a multi-dimensional model with positive sink points where vehicle sink events have occurred and negative sink points where vehicle sink events have not occurred; generating a current vehicle point using monitored and calculated data; determining whether the current vehicle point is within a positive sink region formed by the positive sink points; and predicting a vehicle sink event if the current vehicle point is within the positive sink region.

A tire pressure monitoring system (30) includes a data acquisition portion (101) that acquires data indicating a tire pressure and a tire temperature of the tire, from a sensor (50FL), a sensor (50FR), a sensor (50RL), and a sensor (50RR) mounted to the tire; a puncture determination portion (103) that determines whether the tire is punctured, based on a puncture determination threshold defined by a relationship between the tire pressure and the tire temperature; and a warning processing portion (105) that generates a warning indicating that the tire is punctured apart from a warning of a drop of the tire pressure when the puncture determination portion (103) determines that the tire is punctured.