Investigation into use of piezoelectric sensors in a wheeled robot tire for surface characterization

Abstract

A differential steered, 13.6 kg robot was developed as an intelligent tire testing system and was used to investigate the potential of using piezoelectric film sensors in small tube-type pneumatic tires to characterize tire-ground interaction.One focus of recent research in the tire industry has been on instrumenting tires with sensors to monitor the tire, vehicle, or external environment. On small robots, tire sensors that measure the forces and deflections in the contact patch could be used to improve energy efficiency and/or mobility during a mission.The robot was assembled from a SuperDroid Robots kit and instrumented with low-cost piezoelectric film sensors from Measurement Specialties between the inner tube and the tire. An unlaminated and a laminated sensor were placed circumferentially along the tread and an unlaminated sensor was placed along the sidewall. A slip ring transferred the signals from the tire to the robot. There, the signal conditioning circuit extended the time constant of the sensors and filtered electromagnetic interference. The robot was tested with a controlled power sequence carried out on polished cement, ice, and sand at three power levels, two payload levels, and with two tire sizes.The results suggest that the sensors were capable of detecting normal pressure, deflection, and/or longitudinal strain. Added payload increased the amplitude of the signals for all sensors. On the smaller tires, sensors generally recorded a smaller, wider signal on sand compared to cement, indicating the potential to detect contact patch pressure and length. The signals recorded by the unlaminated sensor along the tread of the smaller tire were lower on ice compared to cement, indicating possible sensitivity to tractive force. Results were less consistent for the larger tires, possibly due to the large tread pattern.

A review on in-tire sensor systems for tire-road interaction studies

“…The result demonstrates the feasibility of the PVDF-based tread deformation sensor. Similar PVDF-based tire sensor systems are also reported in Armstrong et al (2015), Toplar (2014). In Erdogan et al (2011), a differently configured PVDF-based deformation sensor is designed to measure the tire sidewall deformation and then to estimate the tire slip angle.…”

Flexible Interdigital Sensor for Nondestructive Detecting Wear and Thickness of Tire Tread

“…So far, tire pressure monitoring sensors have become an essential monitoring system in every car [15][16]. People have been researching new sensing technologies to monitor tire performance parameters [17][18][19]. Tire tread wear reduces tire life and affects driving safety [20], however, monitoring tire tread wear is a challenge.…”

Tire-Pressure Identification Using Intelligent Tire with Three-Axis Accelerometer

“…Strain sensors and PVDF sensors have gained more attention in tire sensing [17,18,19,20,21]. Zhang et al embedded a pressure-sensitive, electric conductive rubber sensor inside the tire rubber layer to extract the 3-D forces on the contact patch [17].…”

“…Zhang et al embedded a pressure-sensitive, electric conductive rubber sensor inside the tire rubber layer to extract the 3-D forces on the contact patch [17]. Armstrong et al applied three piezoelectric film sensors, which are a kind of strain sensor, on the inner surface of a tire to detect normal pressure, deflection, and longitudinal strain [18]. Erdogan et al proposed a method to estimate the tire-road friction coefficient using a sensor consisting of PVDF film attached to the surface of a cantilever beam [19].…”