Tire containing an RFID tag

Abstract

The present invention describes a tire, which shows the insertion of a passive UHF RFID tag at its moment of manufacture, in which said tag is affixed on top of the metallic part of the referred tire, more specifically on the bead rim, with the purpose of reducing the mechanical stress of the tire in question and allowing its tracking in the manufacturing chain since its first manufacturing stages.

Claims

1. A tire comprising: a bead rim (1), a rubber mass filling (2), a folding of a carcass ply (3), the carcass ply (4), reinforcement screens (5) and an UHF RFID tag (6) including an integrated antenna, wherein said UHF RFID tag (6) is affixed with no electrical contacts to a surface of a metal part of a tire where the bead rim (1) is located so that the surface of the metal part acts as a ground plane together with the integrated antenna to form a resonant dielectric antenna in order to effectively increase the gain of the integrated antenna.

2. The tire according to claim 1, wherein said RFID tag (6) is affixed on an outer edge (7) of the bead rim (1).

3. The tire according to claim 2, wherein said RFID tag (6) is affixed on the outer edge (7) of the bead rim (1) at the time of manufacturing the tire.

4. The tire according to claim 1, wherein said RFID tag (6) is affixed on one of the side edges (7) of the bead rim (1).

5. The tire according to claim 4, wherein said RFID tag (6) is affixed on said one of the side edges (7) of the bead rim (1) at the time of manufacturing the tire.

6. The tire according to claim 1, wherein said RFID tag (6) is affixed on an inner edge (8) of the bead rim (1).

7. The tire according to claim 6, wherein said RFID tag (6) is affixed on the inner edge (8) of the bead rim (1) at the time of manufacturing the tire.

8. The tire according to claim 1, wherein the RFID tag (6) is affixed on the bead rim (1) with staples.

9. The tire according to claim 1, wherein the RFID tag (6) is tied to the bead rim (1) with wires.

10. The tire according to claim 1, wherein the RFID tag (6) is glued on the bead rim (1).

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

(1) The invention can be better understood through the brief description of the figures below:

(2) FIG. 1 shows a sectional view of the components that make up a tire;

(3) FIG. 2 shows a cut view of the tire, with the presence of the RFID tag;

(4) FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of the outer edge of the bead rim;

(5) FIG. 4 shows a perspective view of one of the side edges of the bead rim;

(6) FIG. 5 shows a perspective view of an inner edge of the bead rim.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(7) The present invention describes a tire, which is composed of a bead rim (1), rubber mass filling (2), folding of the carcass ply (3), carcass ply (4) and reinforcement screens (5), as shown in FIG. 1.

(8) At the moment of its manufacture, the referred tire presents the fixation of a passive UHF RFID tag (6), as evidenced in FIG. 2, in its bead rim (1), more specifically in the outer edge (7) of the referred rim, as evidenced in FIG. 3.

(9) The use of RFID tags in tires aims to monitor, automate and track the manufacturing chain from the early stages of manufacture thereof.

(10) Currently, the RFID tags present in the tires are installed in them during the moment of their manufacture and, however, they present some problems, such as difficulty of communication between the tag-reader and mechanical stresses.

(11) Thus, the existing solution in the state of the art to try to mitigate the failure and maximize the distance of communication between the tag-reader is the installation of tags in regions far from the metal parts of the tire.

(12) However, the present invention, in order to be totally innovative and inventive, describes an RFID tag (6) that will be installed on the metallic part of the tire, more specifically on the bead rim (1), where the referred tag (6) will make use of the metallic surface to increase the equivalent antenna area, increasing the efficiency of capture and reflection of electromagnetic energy and, thus, increasing the communication distance between the reader and the tag.

(13) Regarding the reduction of mechanical stress, the present invention describes an RFID tag (6) that is installed in the bead region, preferably in the outer edge of one of the bead rims (1), which is the zone of the tire that suffers the least mechanical stress, both during the manufacture and the use thereof.

(14) The lower mechanical stress in the bead region can be justified due to the low deformation caused by the unevenness of roads with holes, steps and stones, besides being a region that suffers less stretching, contraction or torsion when compared to the regions of the sidewall of the tire.

(15) The present invention does not restrict the way of affixing the tag (6) to the bead rim (1), i.e., the referred tag (6) can be glued, can be attached by means of a staple, or can be tied by means of a cotton or rubberized cotton thread.

(16) The best option to affix the RFID tag (6) to the bead rim (1), in order to guarantee a reading range, robustness of that tag (6) to the manufacturing process and impact on the robustness of the tire, will depend on the type of tire and the type of tag (6) that will be affixed to the rim (1).

(17) Thus, the fixing of an RFID tag (6) on the bead rim (1) of a tire, in addition to allowing the protection and integrity of the referred tag (6) in the subsequent stages of tire manufacturing, enhances the communication distance between the tag-reader and thus facilitates the tracking and monitoring of the manufacturing chain of said tire.

(18) Depending on the orientation of the reading antennas in relation to the position of the tire on a given assembly line, other RFID tag attachment locations (6) on the bead rim (1) of the tire can still increase the distance of communication tag-reader, such as the lateral edges (7), as shown in FIG. 4, and the inner edge (8), as shown in FIG. 5.

(19) This invention was disclosed in this specification in terms of its preferred embodiment. However, other modifications and variations are possible from the present description, being still inserted in the scope of the invention revealed here.