Indirect Tire Pressure Monitoring Using Sensor Fusion

Vehicle handling depends critically on the tire-road contact patch. When the tire inflation pressure changes the contact patch is no longer optimal and the handling properties deteriorate. Furthermore fuel consumption increases and the lifetime of the tires decreases. Therefore it is very important that the tires are correctly inflated.

We here focus on an indirect tire pressure monitoring system, where no pressure sensors are needed. The system is based on vibration and wheel radius analysis. These two approaches are combined for optimal performance concerning sensitivity to detect pressure losses and robustness to different driving conditions. When these two approaches are combined, it is possible to detect pressure losses larger than 15% in one, two, three, or four (diffusion) tires within 1 minute. It is also possible to detect which of the tires that are under-inflated.