Sensor for measuring tire and road friction

Syed Abdul Rafay Hammad (Author)
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
NFC Institute of Engineering and Technology Multan
Multan, Pakistan
rafayhammad1@gmail.com
Authors Name/s per 2nd Affiliation (Author)
Dept. name of organization (Line 1 of Affiliation - optional)
Name of organization - acronyms acceptable (line 2)
City, Country (line 3)
name@xyz.com optional (line 4)

AbstractDrivers Automotive Drivers detect observe road

conditions and then determine the safe-speeds and maneuvers based
on their judgement / experience however no significant progress has
been made to provide safe speed limit against skidding accidents.
No existing on-board gadget on the driver console warns the driver
of loss of the coefficient of friction between the road and the tire
and subsequentlyto inform and to adjust the speed/gear shifts
accordingly thus remain within the safe limits based on the
prevailing dynamic/static friction between the tires and road surface.
Vehicle skids on the leveled road or on the hilly areas results in
abnormal increase of speed and sideways slipping in uncontrolled
direction, which potentially results in collision, overturning or major
falls. Since cCars move with tires rolling friction on the road which
is generated partly by the tires treads and partly by the road surface
therefore. sSkid occurs due to a certain threshold condition of car
speed/acceleration at which the tire is not able to maintain sustain
enough friction to continue cause rolling friction instead it starts
slidingforms a sliding friction. This threshold limit safe speed varies
with road condition, tires condition and weather (muddy/wet roads).
This work suggests suitable sensors to be mounted to determine the
coefficient of frictiondirection on-board measurement and
Index TermsRolling Friction, Simulation, Working model.
associated sensors to display the friction value to the driver. If the
(key words)
threshold value of the friction is reached then driver is warned of the
dangerous situation and retractable spokes mounted on front wheels, I. INTRODUCTION
touches the road surface and instantly reinforce the road friction to
bring the vehicle within safe limits. Mechanical simulation and A sensor that measure the friction between tire and road to
virtual modelling is done to prove it as an acceptable satisfactory make the driver aware of the conditions outside which help
solution. him adjusting the speed of car as per the friction to ensure the
contact between tire and road and smooth running without the
slippage is as important as other sensors in designing the car.
This sensor will not only reduce the accidents but also help
driver to shift gears and adjust speed on the slope and wet
surface of road.

In recent years, much has been researched about the

estimation of tire-road friction coefficient. Some focus only
on the longitudinal movement of the vehicle, with the
vehicle being pulled or braked, and some add to the lateral
movement of the vehicle. So far, three main methods have
been proposed. This is the slip gradient method, the extended
Kalman filter (EKF) method and the method of calculating
the friction of single wheels.
This research paper proposes a sensor that can easily be
mounted in car and will help driver learn the situation between
tire and road. A safe limit will be determined if the value drops
from those values an alarm will be triggered and a light or sign
will start blinking on the speedometer which will educate the
driver to reduce the speed or shift the gear to lower on slope.
A simulation is done on working model which show the
acceleration and torque on different friction. Equivalent mass
is considered meq. to study the acceleration on different
friction surfaces.
II. WORKING MODEL ANALYSIS
Working model is a 2d software let to design and analyze
the behavior of different design under forces. Even the joints
can also be analyzed here. A tire was modeled whose mass
was the total mass of car 4500 kg. Under different forces the
movement of tire was analyzed. A graph of acceleration and
different torque at different forces were obtained. Graph for
acceleration on wet and dry surfaces of road were also
analyzed in both cases a straight line was obtained. At 1000
newton force torque was calculated. Fig.1 show readings;
III. ROLLING FRICTION
Firstly rolling friction is the force that resists the motion of a
body rolling on a surface.
Similarly as done in working model meq is taken and tire is
considered. Rolling friction can be expressed as;
Fr = c W (1)
where
Fr = rolling resistance or rolling friction (N)
c = rolling resistance coefficient - dimensionless (coefficient
of rolling friction - CRF)
W = m ag
= normal force or weight of the body (N)
m = mass of body (kg)
ag = acceleration of gravity (9.81 m/s2)
Weight Pulling Force
Rolling Resistance
Rolling friction can also be expressed as;
Fr = cl W / r
where
cl = rolling resistance coefficient - dimension length
(coefficient of rolling friction) (m)
r = radius of wheel (m)
Original Force = F applied Fr
F applied can be taken from the crank shaft by calculating the
torque of tire by attaching a tachometer to measure the RPM
of tire. Torque can be calculated from RPM. As from Torque
the force applied is calculated. A software designed in which
each and every formula is defined. The programing is done on
MATLAB.
IV. CALCULATING FRICTION ON INCLINED PLANE
Measuring the friction on inclined plane was far more
difficult but through effort it was achieved by designing a
model.
When car moves on a slope friction is much reduced and
car skits. To know how much friction is available on a slope
it was calculated by angle at which the car is standing on
slope. The angle can be calculated by a device called position
sensor.
A. Potential Meter.
It is a position sensor which changes its resistance as the
position of the needle changes. The figure show the potential
meter.
Working of Potential Meter
It consist of a slider connected to diode at one end.
The resistive material is provided voltage from one side and
slider increases or decreases the voltage on end of diode. Same
concept is too use in measuring the friction on slope. As the Coefficient of Rolling friction
scar hits a slope the slider will change its degrees as the angle
of slope. The changing resistance will tell how much degree c Type of surface
the slope is and from that degree all necessary calculation will
be performed by the software and it will show in form of graph
the increasing and decreasing of friction. The idea is to place 0.006 - 0.01 Truck tire on Asphalt
the potential meter in the space available for tire. Following
figure explains the idea; Ordinary Car Tire on
0.01 - 0.015 concrete, new asphalt,
cobbles small new
Meter
Potential

Resistance

Diode

Car tire on tar or

0.02
asphalt

Car tires on gravel-

0.02
rooled new

Car tire on cobbles-

0.03
large worn
B. Equations
When car move up the slope a angle is made with the Car tire on solid sand,
normal reaction of the car and weight of the car. The figure
0.04 - 0.08 gravel loose worn, soil
explains the procedure;
The following equation tell how friction is calculated on
medium hard
slope;
0.2 - 0.4 Car tire on loose sand
Fw = mg

Fn = Fw cos V. FRICTION SENSOR

The sensor includes both the information of inclined and
Fp = Fw sin rolling friction on different types of road the figure below how
the sensor works;
The angle come from the potential meter as the car move
on the inclined plane or slope the angle changes which in
reture changes the resistance and changing voltage will show
a graph on speedometer as the value reaches above the safe
limit a beep is or warning sign is triggered and which will in
return tell the driver to shift gear or lose the speed. If the driver
fails to do so the software is programed which all by itself will
either shit the gear in automatic transmission and break the
connection between the accelerator and engine to lose some
speed in both automatic and manual transmission
C. Coefficient of Rolling Friction on road
Following table shows the coefficient of friction at
different types of road;
 CONCLUSION
No appreciable work was done before this sensor we prove
Car Tyre Potential Meter itself in helping drivers to shift gears and adjust speed where
needed. The simulation is done on working model. The
calculations shows the working behind the sensor. All
calculations and coding are done on Matlab. This sensor will
help in reducing the accidents and help in a safe journey.

ECU
LCD Bring the references to the end.
Electronic Control Unit

Following comments:
Graph
or a) Improve the mathematical model. (Use differential
equaltions to build up the model, show the tires driving
Indicator (Warning forces, friction forces, change in the friction (take help
Sign) froman existing aritvle)
b) Use Kalman filter, some technique, reverse mean
Refences square technique was used, use the same iin your article.
[1] H. E. Tseng, D. Madau, B. Ashrafi, T. Brown, and D. Recker, c) Use the working model to demonstrate how the tire
Technical challenges in the development of vehicle stability control torque (which would be picked up by the potentio meter)
system, in Proc. IEEE Int.Conf.Control Applications, HI, Aug.1999,
pp.1660-1666.W.-K. Chen, Linear Networks and Systems (Book
varies from the dry road to the wet road. iNclude graphs of
style). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993, pp. 123135. acceretation and velocity of the tires
[2] A. T. van Zanten, Bosch ESP systems: 5 years of experience, in d) There is mention of retractable spookes in the start
Proc. SAE Automotive Dynamics and Stability Conf., Troy. MI, May
2000, Paper No. 2000-01-1633.
and then later on it is nor referred, Eirher remove it from the
[3] A. Nishio, K. Tozu, H. Yamaguchi, K. Asano, and Y. Amano, beginning or continue it in the article.
Development of vehicle stability control system based on vehicle e) How it would be installed on the car. Include an Formatted: Heading 4
sideslip angle estimation, SAE Paper, No. 2001-01-0137. image of car/model of car and the place of mounting of
[4] L. Austin and D. Morrey, Recent advances in antilock braking
systems and traction control systems, Proc.Inst.Mech.Eng.D, potenti meter and control diagram of the potentiometer and
vol.214, no.6, pp.625-638, 2000. the feeback given by the control system.
[5] K. Yi and J. Taeyoung, Observer based estimation of tire-road
friction for collision warning algorithm adaptation, JSME Int.J.Series
C. vol.41, no.1, pp.116-124, Mar.1998.
[6] G. Erdogan, L.Alexander, and R.Rajamani, Friction coefficient
measurement system for autonomous winter road maintenance,
Vehicle System Dynamics, vol.47, no.4, pp.497-512, 2009.
[7] F. Gustaffson, 1997, Slip-Based Tire-Road Friction Estimation,
Automatica, vol.33, no.6, pp.1087-1099.
[8] S. Mller, M. Uchanski, and H. Karl, Slip-Based Tire-Road Friction
Estimation During Braking, Proceedings of 2001 ASME
International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, New
York, pp.213-220.
[9] J. Wang, L. Alexander, and R. Rajamani, Friction estimation on
high-way vehicles using longitudinal measurements, ASME J. Dyn.
Syst.,Meas. Control, vol.126, no.2, pp.265-275, 2004.
[10] L. R. Ray, Nonlinear tire force estimation and road friction
identification: Simulation and experiments, Automatica, vol.33, pp.
1819-1833, 1997.
[11] J. Dakhlallah, S. Glaser, S. Mammar, and Y. Sebsadji, Tire-Road
Forces Estimation Using Extended Kalman Filter and Side slip Angle
Evaluation, 2008 American Control Conference, USA, 2008.
[12] R. Rajamani, G. Phanomchoeng, D. Piyabongkarn, and J. Y. Lew,
Algorithms for Real-Time Estimation of Individual Wheel Tire-Road
Friction Coefficients, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics,
vol.17, no.6, 2012.
[13] F. Jiang, and Z. Gao, An Adaptive Nonlinear Filter Approach to the
Vehicle Velocity Estimation for ABS, Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE
International Conference on Control Applications, USA, 2000.
[14] G. Welch, and G. Bishop, An Introduction to the Kalman Filter,
.