System for estimation of tire tread depth employing wheel speed

A system for estimation of a depth of a tread of a tire supporting a vehicle, the system comprising:

• a processor in electronic communication with an electronic control system of the vehicle;
• a wheel speed signal processing module in electronic communication with the processor, the wheel speed signal processing module receiving measured wheel speed signals and generating processed wheel speed signals from the measured wheel speed signals;
• a Fast Fourier Transform computation module in electronic communication with the processor, the Fast Fourier Transform computation module receiving the processed wheel speed signals and generating a Fast Fourier Transform curve;
• a summation module in electronic communication with the processor, the summation module selecting a predefined range of the Fast Fourier Transform curve, generating a reference curve from the predefined range of the Fast Fourier Transform curve, and determining a sum of residuals between a real-time Fast Fourier Transform curve and the reference curve;
• and
• a regression model in electronic communication with the processor, the regression model determining an estimate of tire tread depth from the sum of residuals.