Falken parent company Sumito Rubber Industries are developing a way to make measuring tyre wear easier than ever before
Sumito’s new device, the Energy Harvester, needs no batteries. Instead, a tiny system bonded to the inside of the tyre generates static electricity to power an equally small tyre sensor, which can transmit a data signal to the car’s electronic systems using BLE . Inside the Energy Harvester are two layers of rubber covered with a film, creating a negative and positive electrode.
As the tyre deforms, the two films rub together, generating static electricity. An array of Harvesters are arranged in a line across the inside of the tyre carcass, and as the tyre rolls along the road, each one generates a small voltage. The changing shape of the voltage waveform between them indicates the variation in the tyre footprint as the tyre wears.
The system could be incorporated into tyres intended for conventional cars, talking to the vehicle’s instrumentation system to warn of excessively worn tyres. Working in conjunction with the vehicle’s tyre pressure monitoring systems , it seems logical that the combination of the two could provide a far more effective way of keeping an eye on all aspects of a tyre’s condition on the driver’s behalf.
The research originally formed part of Sumito’s Smart Tyre Concept, which received funding in 2019 from the Japan Science & Technology Agency. The concept is aimed at turning complete tyres into sensors. Other tyre manufacturers, notably Continental and Goodyear, have been working on smart tyre concepts for a number of years, too.
Continental’s Sidewall Torsion Sensor , fi rst seen a few years ago, was designed to integrate with braking systems to improve stability under braking. Because it could detect vehicle yaw at source rather than after it was under way, it was also hoped that SWT could one day do away with a vehicle yaw sensor, the most expensive part of an ESP system.
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