Patent Application
20230341296
The present disclosure relates generally to tires, and more particularly, to tire tread monitoring systems and related methods.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,677,973 (entitled “Method and Apparatus for Environmental Protection of Drive-Over Tire Tread Depth Optical Sensors” to Carroll et al.) discusses use of optical sensors for the acquisition of data associated with tire conditions of vehicle wheels. As further discussed, optical sensors are disposed in, or below, a supporting surface over which the vehicle wheels roll. Embedded or drive-over optical sensors may include components for projecting illuminating energy towards and onto the surfaces of a passing vehicle, as well as receiving components for capturing reflected energy from the passing vehicle. For example, some tire tread depth measurement systems consist of a laser emitter configured to project a laser light onto or across the surface of a tire passing over the optical sensor, and a cooperatively configured imaging sensor for acquiring images of the projected laser light reflected from the passing tire. Other systems/methods are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,805,697 (entitled “Method for Tire Tread Depth Modeling and Image Annotation” to Dorrance et al.). Such methods/systems, however, may be costly and/or difficult to scale down to fit small enclosures.
According to some embodiments, an external tire reader configured to read a tire tread is provided. The external tire reader includes an offset structure configured to be applied to the tire tread. The external tire reader further includes a camera system configured to generate an image of the tire tread while the offset structure is applied to the tire tread. The offset structure is configured to provide a fixed distance between the camera system and the tire tread while the offset structure is applied to the tire tread. The external tire reader further includes a controller coupled with the camera system. The controller is configured to process the image of the tire received from the camera system.
Various embodiments herein allow quick and accurate monitoring of vehicle tires, which can improve car safety.
The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate certain non-limiting embodiments of inventive concepts. In the drawings:
Inventive concepts will be described hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which examples of embodiments of inventive concepts are shown. Inventive concepts may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of present inventive concepts to those skilled in the art. It should also be noted that these embodiments are not mutually exclusive. Components from one embodiment may be tacitly assumed to be present/used in another embodiment.
The following description presents various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter. These embodiments are presented as teaching examples and are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the disclosed subject matter. For example, certain details of the described embodiments may be modified, omitted, or expanded upon without departing from the scope of the described subject matter.
According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a system is provided to measure tire tread depth and other characteristics of the surface profile of a tire, along with various attributes. This system is referred to as an External Tire Reader system or ETR.
An example of an ETR system is illustrated in
While
According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, the Dual IR camera system 115 of
The Dual IR camera system 115 may also include an RGB camera as discussed above with respect to
The ETR is manually aligned to the surface of the tire using the frame 111 to provide/ensure proper orientation (x,y, rotation) and distance from the camera system 115 to the tire surface.
Based on user input received through user interface 121 (e.g., responsive to the user pulling a trigger on handle 119), the ETR controller 800 generates/captures a 3D point cloud image from the surface of the tire using the dual camera system 115, and an example of such a point cloud is illustrated in
The point cloud (also referred to as an image) may be locally modified (in the controller 800) to reduce/eliminate superfluous data, (e.g. color), trimmed in size, and then sent to the cloud. For example, processing circuitry 803 may process/modify the point cloud, and processing circuitry 803 may transmit the modified point cloud through communication interface 801 to a remote processing entity (e.g., in the cloud). The communication interface 801 may provide a wired interface (e.g., an Ethernet interface) or a wireless interface (e.g., a cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, or other wireless interface) to provide communication of the modified point cloud over a wired/wireless network to the remote processing entity.
The 3D point cloud data is analyzed in the cloud to determine/produce tread depths across the surface of the tire profile.
The results are returned from the cloud through the ETR communication interface 801 and displayed for the user on a display of user interface 121, to provide a user output such as that shown in
Results with more extensive analytics can also be summarized at a customer-defined URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
At block 1030, processing circuitry 803 may trim the 3D point cloud in size, e.g., by reducing/eliminating superfluous data, (e.g. color).
At block 1040, after trimming the size of the 3D point cloud, processing circuitry 803 may transmit the 3D point through communication interface 801 (e.g., over a wired and/or wireless coupling, for example, including a wireless cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. coupling) to a remote processing entity (e.g., in the cloud).
Returning to
According to some other embodiments, data of the 3D point cloud may be analyzed locally by processor 803 at the ETR, results of the local analysis may be used to generate the output of
The output of data can be represented in a variety of ways as discussed in greater detail below.
As shown in
As shown in
Several structural aspects of the external tire reader are discussed below according to some embodiments of inventive concepts.
The width of the tire that can be measured is a function of the field of view from the optics of camera system 115. This is also a function of the focal distance of the optics of camera system 115. In order to gain a wider field of view for larger tires (e.g., commercial truck and bus tires), the system may be modified structurally. In some examples, the camera may be moved further from the tire surface by providing a greater distance between camera system 115 and frame 111 (e.g., extending a length of frame support 113). In additional or alternative examples, the size of the ETR may be increased. In additional or alternative examples, multiple cameras may be added at the same focal length to extend the lateral image field. Separate images can be digitally stitched together to generate a single image of the tire.
In additional or alternative examples, a single camera system can be implemented that mechanically traverses the surface of the tire to capture an image of the full tire width. In the ETR of
The 3D point cloud that is generated by the camera system 115 may be altered to reduce/eliminate superfluous information and reduce the file size for subsequent transmission to the remote processing entity (e.g., a processing entity in the cloud). In some embodiments, the X,Y dimensions of the file may trimmed/cropped so that portions of the 3D point cloud that are not needed are omitted from subsequent transmission/processing. In additional or alternative embodiments, color information is omitted.
According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, one or more of the following operations/algorithms may be used. In some embodiments, peak detection may be used to identify a number and depth of groves for each cross-sectional slice. In additional or alternative embodiments, leveling may be used to remove the circumferential and/or shoulder to shoulder bow, preprocessing or presenting the rubber thickness data relative to the tire carcass. In additional or alternative embodiments, baseline extractions may be used to estimate continuous tread thickness as a function of shoulder to shoulder position for each cross-sectional slice. In additional or alternative embodiments, machine learning may be used to identify irregularities needing special attention, tire type (e.g., block tread, 3-groove, etc.). In additional or alternative embodiments, stitching may be used to tie multiple images from separate point clouds together into a continuous dataset, e.g., in embodiments using two camera systems to generate two 3D point clouds from different positions or in embodiments using one moveable camera system to generate two 3D point clouds from two different positions. In additional or alternative embodiments, Sensor Fusion may be used to improve stitching by fusing inertial measurement unit (IMU) values with frame data.
In the above-description of various embodiments of present inventive concepts, it is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of present inventive concepts. Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which present inventive concepts belong. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of this specification and the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.
When an element is referred to as being “on”, “connected”, “coupled”, “responsive”, or variants thereof to another element, it can be directly on, connected, coupled, or responsive to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly on”, “directly connected”, “directly coupled”, “directly responsive”, or variants thereof to another element, there are no intervening elements present. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Furthermore, “coupled”, “connected”, “responsive”, or variants thereof as used herein may include wirelessly coupled, connected, or responsive. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity. The term “and/or” (abbreviated as “/”) includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
It will be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements/operations, these elements/operations should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element/operation from another element/operation. Thus, a first element/operation in some embodiments could be termed a second element/operation in other embodiments without departing from the teachings of present inventive concepts. The same reference numerals or the same reference designators denote the same or similar elements throughout the specification.
As used herein, the terms “comprise”, “comprising”, “comprises”, “include”, “including”, “includes”, “have”, “has”, “having”, or variants thereof are open-ended, and include one or more stated features, integers, elements, steps, components or functions but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, elements, steps, components, functions or groups thereof. Furthermore, as used herein, the common abbreviation “e.g.”, which derives from the Latin phrase “exempli gratia,” may be used to introduce or specify a general example or examples of a previously mentioned item, and is not intended to be limiting of such item. The common abbreviation “i.e.”, which derives from the Latin phrase “id est,” may be used to specify a particular item from a more general recitation.
The dimensions of elements in the drawings may be exaggerated for the sake of clarity. Further, it will be understood that when an element is referred to as being “on” another element, the element may be directly on the other element, or there may be an intervening element therebetween. Moreover, terms such as “top,” “bottom,” “upper,” “lower,” “above,” “below,” and the like are used herein to describe the relative positions of elements or features as shown in the figures. For example, when an upper part of a drawing is referred to as a “top” and a lower part of a drawing is referred to as a “bottom” for the sake of convenience, in practice, the “top” may also be called a “bottom” and the “bottom” may also be a “top” without departing from the teachings of the inventive concept (e.g., if the structure is rotate 180 degrees relative to the orientation of the figure).
Example embodiments are described herein with reference to block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations of computer-implemented methods, apparatus (systems and/or devices) and/or computer program products. It is understood that a block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions that are performed by one or more computer circuits. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor circuit of a general purpose computer circuit, special purpose computer circuit, and/or other programmable data processing circuit to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer and/or other programmable data processing apparatus, transform and control transistors, values stored in memory locations, and other hardware components within such circuitry to implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks, and thereby create means (functionality) and/or structure for implementing the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block(s).
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a tangible computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks. Accordingly, embodiments of present inventive concepts may be embodied in hardware and/or in software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) that runs on a processor (also referred to as a controller) such as a digital signal processor, which may collectively be referred to as “circuitry,” “a module” or variants thereof.
It should also be noted that in some alternate implementations, the functions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the flowcharts. For example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved. Moreover, the functionality of a given block of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be separated into multiple blocks and/or the functionality of two or more blocks of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be at least partially integrated. Finally, other blocks may be added/inserted between the blocks that are illustrated, and/or blocks/operations may be omitted without departing from the scope of inventive concepts. Moreover, although some of the diagrams include arrows on communication paths to show a primary direction of communication, it is to be understood that communication may occur in the opposite direction to the depicted arrows.
Many variations and modifications can be made to the embodiments without substantially departing from the principles of the present inventive concepts. All such variations and modifications are intended to be included herein within the scope of present inventive concepts. Accordingly, the above disclosed subject matter is to be considered illustrative, and not restrictive, and the examples of embodiments are intended to cover all such modifications, enhancements, and other embodiments, which fall within the spirit and scope of present inventive concepts. Thus, to the maximum extent allowed by law, the scope of present inventive concepts are to be determined by the broadest permissible interpretation of the present disclosure including the following claims and their equivalents, and shall not be restricted or limited by the foregoing detailed description.
This application claims the benefit of priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/982,787 filed Feb. 28, 2020, the disclosure and content of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/US2021/020200 | 3/1/2021 | WO |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62982787 | Feb 2020 | US |
