Tire suspension fusion system for estimation of tire deflection and tire load

A tire load estimation system for a vehicle comprising:

• at least one tire mounted to a wheel hub and supporting a vehicle chassis;
• at least one load sensor mounted to the at least one tire for detecting a measured tire load on the at least one tire;
• a tire static load estimator operable to determine a static tire load from the measured tire load;
• at least one vehicle chassis-mounted sensor for measuring a vehicle chassis vertical deflection;
• a tire deflection estimator operable to estimate a tire deflection by fusing the static load estimation of the at least one tire with the vehicle chassis vertical deflection;
• a load variation estimator for estimating a substantially instantaneous load variation from the estimated tire deflection;
• a tire load estimator for calculating a substantially instantaneous tire load estimation operably fusing the static tire load with the instantaneous load variation.

A method of estimating a tire load for a vehicle comprising:

• supporting a vehicle chassis by at least one tire mounted to a wheel hub;
• detecting a measured static tire load by a tire static load sensor mounted to the at least one tire;
• calculating an estimated tire static load based on the measured static tire load;
• detecting a measured vehicle chassis vertical deflection from a sensor mounted to the vehicle chassis;
• estimating a tire vertical deflection from the vehicle chassis vertical deflection and the static tire load;
• calculating an estimated load variation from the tire vertical deflection estimation;
• and
• estimating a substantially instantaneous tire load on the at least one tire based on the estimated tire static load and the estimated load variation.