Tyre Pressure & Temperature Monitoring System

[rkosharil]

Hi,

I want to create an existing technology which is TPMS. But I want to do it myself. Can anyone tell me if I can use arduino uno and communicate with the pressure & temperature sensors and get the output to my LCD display which attached to my arduino?

Can anyone advise me on this matter as I am lack of understanding.

Thanks! Cheers!

[johnwasser]

You will need a transmitter and receiver to get readings from inside the tire to the Arduino.  Are you going to build the transmitter part yourself?

[rkosharil]

I am not sure. Is there any pressure and temperature seensor out there that can work with arduino?

[johnwasser]

I am not sure. Is there any pressure and temperature seensor out there that can work with arduino?

There are many pressure and temperature sensors that will connect to an Arduino.  What good will that do you when the pressure and temperature you want to measure are inside a tire and the Arduino and display are outside the tire?

[rkosharil]

Yes, that is what I want. The sensors are in the tyre and transmit the data to arduino (which have LCD Display attached to it). Arduino is the receiver. You know which sensor that can communicate with arduino?

[petermetzger]

Is there any pressure and temperature seensor out there that can work with arduino?

Oh, they are everywhere. The first issue you'll have, though, will be finding a pressure sensor that has an adequate range. Barometric pressure sensors (which often incorporate temperature sensors) could get the job done, but considering the pressures you want to monitor, it may be tough to find one that can sense the higher pressures you need.

A sensor like Sparkfun's MPL115A1 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9602 can sense pressures up to 115 kPa. That sounds like a lot, but when you convert that to PSI (1 PSI = ~6.89475729 kPa) you'll find that you're cap is around 16.6 PSI, not nearly adequate for a tire that's rated ~32-38 PSI. But keep searching, I'm sure someone knows of a product that does what you're after.

Once you find a suitable pressure sensor, though, setting up an RF link between all 4 tires and a central "hub" in the cabin of the vehicle shouldn't be too tough. You can have each tire transmit a reading periodically on some pseudo-random interval.

The guts inside your tire only need to consist of a battery, transmitter, sensor, and barebones arduino. In the cabin, you'll probably want a full size board, receiver, lcd and dc converter so you can run off the car's 12v supply.

Check out some of the wireless stuff on Sparkfun https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/16 and see if it gives you any ideas.

[retrolefty]

That reminds me of my trying to figure out how my 2000 Buick knew how to warn me when I had a low tire.

After I had the car some months one morning when starting out the alphanumeric display showed a check tire pressure warning. So I looked and one tire was just a little lower then the other three so I pumped it up at a gas station and didn't think anything more about it. About a year later I was getting some new tires installed and I thought I would look at the dismounted wheel to see where the air pressure sensor might be mounted. Couldn't find a thing, just a plain old steel wheel, nothing mounted in it at all. So later I got on the Internet and started to research how it could sense a low tire warning without having pressure sensors on the wheel.

Turns out they don't use pressure measurements at all. Rather as each wheel brake assembly already has a speed pick-up sensor to support the anti-lock brake function they just use that same sensor to read each wheel rotation speed and then compare all four wheel speeds to see how close they are, and if one (or more?) is too much different then the others then it issues the check tire pressure warning. I thought that was pretty cleaver to come up with an additional monitoring function without needing any extra hardware, just added software.

Lefty

[johnwasser]

Turns out they don't use pressure measurements at all.

Some do.  Some TPMS's (VW, Porsche, BMW, Saab) use a wheel-mounted or valve-stem-mounted pressure transmitter.  Some use 315 MHz (US).  Some use 433 MHz (Europe?).

[retrolefty]

Turns out they don't use pressure measurements at all.

Some do.  Some TPMS's (VW, Porsche, BMW, Saab) use a wheel-mounted or valve-stem-mounted pressure transmitter.  Some use 315 MHz (US).  Some use 433 MHz (Europe?).

Yes, my research showed several different methods being used, some using real wheel tire pressure sensors being used. My car just uses a simple method that just uses existing sensors and as such doesn't tell me which wheel is low (or too high I guess) but I was impressed none the less.

Lefty

[Riva]

My Renault (like many cars nowadays) has tyre pressure sensors but I have never seen ones that also monitor temperature. Are you looking to buy standard sensors and reverse engineer the wireless data protocol from them to interface to your arduino or are you looking to build the sensors yourself?
You can buy complete kits online http://www.tyresensors.com/product/107/Tyresure-Retro-Fit-TPMS-Kit-4-wheel-unit but there is no fun in that.
You could just buy the sensors http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RANGE-ROVER-TPMS-valves-315mhz-USA-2010-used-on-the-later-vehicle-/370584170709?pt=UK_Cars_Parts_Vehicles_Wheels_tyre_Trims_Trims_ET&hash=item564889b0d5 or http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/65336-67-Schrader-Tyre-Pressure-Sensor-TPMS-Renault-Clio-Modus-OE-8200253215-/380417962712?pt=UK_CarParts_Acc_Wheels_tyres_Trims_Car_Rims_ET&hash=item5892ad72d8 and hack the wireless protocol used. Or hardest of all make your own. Difficulty would be making something small light and robust to handle years of going round and round and have suitable battery life.

[mixania]

Consider using an XBee as a transmitter or this set of RX linkers:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10534 - RF Link Transmitter (434MHz) from SparkFun for about 4$
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10532 - RF Link Receiver (434MHz) from SparkFun for about 5$

http://www.ebay.com/itm/315Mhz-WL-RF-transmitter-and-receiver-link-kit-for-Arduino-ARM-MCU-/370776247168?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5653fc8b80
Ebay Just $1.50 a pair!

[Christopher_W]

I actually managed to find a sensor, which protocoll was already reverse engineered and documented on the internet.

Just look at these two resources:
https://www.ccc.ac/tpms/
http://www.gdtg-rundumwissen.de/img/user/downloads/RDKS_BRV-Magazin%20Special.pdf

The first presents the complete protocoll from a generic sensor and the second gives a damn lot of information about TPMS systems in general.

Sadly for you the articles are both in my motherlanguage "german", but I decided to post them anyway, because the information is really exactly what one would need.

[TomGeorge]

Hi,
If you make your own sensor you have to build the device;

• small enough to fit on the wheel rim
• sturdy enough to survive the centrifugal force 
• tough enough for rough roads, as the tyre is regarded s unsprung weight, so the car suspension is not going to help.
• battery power

Tall order I'd say.

Christopher_W suggestion sounds good if you could get a translation.

Tom...

[rohit1979]

An ultrasonic sensor can be used to measure rotation speeds of individual wheels. Going by the basic premise that when air pressure in the tyre is low, the wheel rotates slowly, it can be found out which ones need refill or if one is too low.

(Does the latency of ultrasonic system permit its use in measuring speed?)

It might be possible to calibrate so as to get close-to-actual pressure readings also.
In addition, for temperature, an infrared temperature sensor can be used.

This arrangement can be good enough for normal use.

[johnwasser]

An ultrasonic sensor can be used to measure rotation speeds of individual wheels. 

On a vehicle with ABS you can use the ABS sensors to measure wheel speed.