Methods and systems for determining a vehicle route based on an estimation of the weight of the vehicle

A method for determining a route for a vehicle, the method including:

• a) including a navigation module in a vehicle fitted with tires;
• b) coupling a tire monitoring unit to at least one tire of said tires and to the navigation module, said tire monitoring unit including a processing unit and at least one tire deformation sensing element configured to generate a sensing signal descriptive of deformations undergone by said tire during rotation on a rolling surface, said deformations forming a contact area between said tire and said rolling surface;
• c) during the rotation of said at least one tire of the vehicle fitted with such tire monitoring unit, undersampling, through the processing unit, said sensing signal generated by said sensing element including the sensing signal generated in correspondence of passages of said sensing element through said contact area for a number of said passages used for obtaining, during said rotation, through the processing unit, an estimated length of said contact area based on said undersampled sensing signal, said undersampling occurring at a sampling frequency of 1.5 KHz or less;
• d) estimating, through the processing unit, a weight of the vehicle based on such estimated length,
• e) identifying, through the processing unit, at least two alternative routes;
• and
• f) selecting, through the processing unit, at least one route among said at least alternative routes based on such estimated weight of the vehicle.