Yi Xiong

A laser-based sensor system for tire tread deformation measurement

Optical tire sensors are powerful engineering tools that can reveal the mechanisms behind tireroad interactions. This paper presents a laser-based sensor system to measure tire-tread block deformation. The methodology and corresponding procedure for the system are introduced. Practical issues, such as tire sensor localization, are discussed. Validation experiments were conducted on a chassis dynamometer, and an asymmetric tire tread deformation along the contact patch was observed. It is proposed that asymmetric tread deformation is due to rolling resistance. The measurements under different operational conditions, including the rolling direction, wheel load, rolling velocity, and inflation pressure, were analyzed in the context of rolling resistance.

Energy harvesting system for intelligent tyre sensors

An intelligent tyre system enables the active chassis control system to directly access the information about tyre-road interactions. However, supplying power to the system is still a bottleneck which limits the applicability of the intelligent tyre system. This paper proposes a piezoelectric energy harvesting system with energy storage to address this issue. The system was installed to the inside of a car tyre and measured with a chassis dynamometer. The harvester was found to produce approximately 88 μW of power at a driving speed of 60 km/h, which is enough to supply energy for a low-power in-tyre sensor system with radio link connectivity such as a tyre pressure monitoring system.

A multi-laser sensor system to measure rolling deformation for truck tyres

The rolling deformation of a tyre is a direct result of tyre-road interactions and therefore contains useful information for tyre design. This study proposes a multi-laser sensor system for rolling tyre deformation measurements and the methodology is illustrated in detail. On-board validation tests were conducted with a truck tyre under service conditions. Tyre inner contour changes due to the inflation and wheel load were measured. In addition, non-uniform tread deformations were observed within the contact patch. In the longitudinal direction, asymmetric tread deformations which have direct links to rolling resistance were observed, while, in the lateral direction, the tread deformation pattern were found related to the inflation pressure and wheel load. The preliminary measurement results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system as a tool for investigations on tyre-road interactions and validations of virtual tyre models.

Towards the friction potential estimation: A model-based approach to utilizing in-tyre accelerometer measurements

Tyre-road contact condition information would benefit many vehicle safety and control systems. However, direct information is still not available in production vehicles. Tyre sensing could provide this necessary information but many aspects must still be studied. In this paper, a physical ring tyre model is used to estimate and remove the acceleration profile caused by the contact deformation from the measured in-tyre acceleration data. This residual acceleration can then be used to study the tyre-road contact conditions. A simple analysis with standard deviation is used to show the effects of different road surfaces on the measured in-tyre acceleration.