Wireless Sensor Network for Automobile Tire Health Monitoring: Embedded Wireless Sensor Network for Aircraft/Automobile Tire Structural Health Monitoring

Structural Health Monitoring of automobile tires has been an active area of research in the last few years. Tire manufacturers are looking to develop a sensor system that can monitor the health of an automobile tire. A sensor system that can measure the overall strain of a tire is known as a centralized strain sensing system. However, a centralized strain sensing system cannot find the location and severity of the damage on the tire, which is a basic requirement. Various sensors such as acceleration and optical sensors have also been proposed to be used together to get more local damage information on the tire but a tire equipped with multiple sensors is neither practical nor cost effective. We have developed a strain sensing system that performs accurate, local strain measurements on the tire and transmits them to a console inside the vehicle wirelessly. We have also developed a reliable and an energy efficient geographic routing protocol for transporting strain data wirelessly from a tire surface to the driver of the automobile.