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AssigneePiezotag Limited
InventorsGeoffrey Haswell, Simon William Fawcett, Paul Reece Holdsworth, Stephen John Bowles, David Matthew Smart, Miguel Jesus Garcia-Hernandez, Juan Antonio Chavez-Dominguez, Antonio Turo-Peroy, Jordi Salazar-Soler
Estimating the term…
A telemetry unit (100) is provided for mounting to the inside of a pneumatic tire, which includes sensors for measuring the pressure and temperature within the tire and an RF transmitter for transmitting measured data to an on-board display remote location. The unit (100) includes a piezoelectric element (114) supported in a housing (112) with an actuator (136) arranged for contact with the element (114), to deflect the element (114) in response to external forces acting on the actuator (136) during rotation of the tire. For every rotation of the tire, cyclic pulses of electrical charge are generated by the deflection of the element (114). The unit (100) includes control means which controls the consumption of stored charge when measuring and transmitting data and is arranged to vary the rate of transmission of data from the unit (100) in dependence on the rotary speed of the tire.
A telemetry unit for a tire monitoring apparatus, the telemetry unit including a housing having sensor means for measuring data relevant to the local environment of the telemetry unit, transmission means for transmitting measured data to a remote location, a piezoelectric power generator adapted to generate and store an electrical charge in response to rotation of the tire for powering the unit, and control means for controlling the sensor means and transmission means, in which the control means is arranged to vary the rate of transmission of data from the telemetry unit in dependence on the rotary speed of the tire, and wherein the piezoelectric power generator is arranged to produce at least one pulse of electric charge for each rotation of the tire, and the control means is adapted to monitor the number and/or frequency of the pulses generated in order to determine the appropriate rate of transmission of data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.