Road surface friction and surface type estimation system and method

A tire-based system for estimating road surface friction comprising:

• at least one tire mounted to a wheel hub and supporting a vehicle;
• at least one tire sensor mounted to the at least one tire;
• at least one vehicle sensor mounted to the vehicle;
• a model-based longitudinal stiffness estimator producing a model-based longitudinal stiffness estimation for the one tire from a set of tire-based inputs generated from the at least one tire sensor and a first set of vehicle-based inputs generated from the at least one vehicle sensor;
• an actual longitudinal stiffness estimator producing an actual longitudinal stiffness estimation from a second set of vehicle-based inputs generated from the at least one vehicle sensor;
• a tire road friction estimator deriving a road friction estimation from a comparative analysis between the actual longitudinal stiffness estimation and the model-based longitudinal stiffness estimation.