A Triboelectric Self‐Powered Sensor for Tire Condition Monitoring: Concept, Design, Fabrication, and Experiments

Abstract

This paper presents a novel type of triboelectric-based self-powered sensor for tire condition monitoring. The triboelectric based sensor is made of highly flexible, mechanically and thermally durable, and cost-effective polymeric materials. The authors firstly report the location inside of a tire for attaching the sensor to monitor tire conditions. Then, the authors analyze the performance of the sensor under different frequencies and stroke displacements to show the capability of the fabricated device as a self-powered sensor. Furthermore, the authors evaluate the durability and performance of the sensor to delineate its potential for tire condition monitoring. The results show that the fabricated self-powered sensor has the potential of measuring the tire forces and pressure. The use of the proposed sensor for tire condition monitoring systems (TCMS) can be considered as a significant step toward developing smart tires, improving vehicles control strategy, and accordingly, enhancing passengers safety.

Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerator Based on High Surface Area TiO2 Nanotube Arrays

“…[8][9][10][11][12] Diverse application ranges of TENGs have been proposed and investigated including self-powered systems, [13] wearable devices, [14] self-powered active sensors, [10,15,16] vibration energy harvester, [17][18][19] wind energy harvester. [23] The introduced sensor has the potential of analyzing the tire condition, tire forces, and pressure. Wang et al employed TENG as an efficient water wave motion.…”

An Abundant and Renewable Potential Energy Source: Harvestable Energy under Vehicle Wheels

“…The answer is undoubtedly “Yes.” In this paper, a not‐yet‐discovered (or neglected) renewable energy source, which is visible everywhere in the modern world, namely, energy under vehicle wheels, is reported. Although power harvesting from a rotating tire by a nanogenerator based on piezoelectric effect and triboelectric effect or by an electromechanical wideband energy harvester has been realized for years, how much energy is indeed contained under the vehicle wheels (deformable tires) has never been discussed or discovered. As a renewable energy source, the power under the vehicle wheels has not yet been acknowledged.…”

“…The reported energy harvesting techniques related to vehicle tires and in the way as mentioned earlier were all for the purpose of powering small wireless electric devices such as tire pressure monitoring sensors. Limited by the working principles, those explored energy harvesters are unable to extract high‐density power.…”

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source, which is visible everywhere in the modern world, namely, energy under vehicle wheels, is reported. Although power harvesting from a rotating tire by a nanogenerator based on piezoelectric effect [1] and triboelectric effect [2][3][4][5] or by an electromechanical wideband energy harvester [6] has been realized for years, how much energy is indeed contained under the vehicle wheels (deformable tires) has never been discussed or discovered. As a renewable energy source, the power under the vehicle wheels has not yet been acknowledged.Herein, for the first time, the energy contained under the vehicle wheels (due to the tires' deformation caused by the gross weight of vehicle together with passenger(s) and load) is discovered as a renewable energy source from the high-density power viewpoint.

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“…This idea about a real renewable energy source, from all aspects, is totally different from the explorations related to low-density energy harvesting efforts so far. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Because the vehicle body is always moving in parallel to the ground surface without displacement in the direction of the gravitational acceleration (g), the power contained in the vehicle wheel system is not that apparent and thus has not been recognized as a renewable energy source so far. Now considering a wheel (note that, no matter it is a four-wheel car or a ten-wheel heavy truck, all the wheels are equivalently considered as one, and the vehicle weight is exerted on this one wheel) under a running vehicle at a speed V, the tire will be slightly flatted from the round shape at the interface between the tire and the ground due to the exerted weight of vehicle together with passenger(s) and load, as schematically shown in Figure 1.…”