Resilient tires and wheels – Tires – resilient – With electrical conducting means
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-16
2003-06-24
Johnstone, Adrienne C. (Department: 1733)
Resilient tires and wheels
Tires, resilient
With electrical conducting means
C152S454000, C152S517000, C152S526000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06581657
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a pneumatic tire incorporating an integrated circuit transponder for use in tire identification and for the transmission of such tire data as temperature and pressure and the like. More particularly, the invention relates to the combination of a transponder and an electromagnetic coupling element and to the disposition of both within a tire.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
For a century, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company of Akron Ohio, assignee of the present invention, has been the uncontested industry leader in tire product technology.
For example, as early as 1892, a puncture-resistant tire was patented. In 1934, a year recognized as the beginning of the runflat era, Goodyear introduced the Lifeguard (tm) safety tube, a fabric tube within the tire, used commercially by auto makers and on trucks. In 1993, Goodyear's Eagle GS-C EMT (Extended Mobility Technology) won the Discover Award for Automotive Technological Innovation. In 1996, the Goodyear Eagle F1 runflat tire was chosen as standard equipment on the 1997 Chevrolet C-5 Corvette.
Other examples of the strides Goodyear has taken in the advancement of tire and related technologies include, but are not limited to, the following patented inventions:
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,665,387 (Enabnit; 1972), entitled SIGNALLING SYSTEM FOR LOW TIRE CONDITION ON A VEHICLE, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses a low tire pressure warning system adaptable for any number of wheels of a vehicle and providing dashboard indications of system operation and low pressure conditions while the vehicle is in motion.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,161 (Enabnit; 1974), entitled FAIL-SAFE MONITORING APPARATUS, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses monitoring vehicle tire pressure wherein the operator is warned of an abnormal or unsafe condition of one or more of the tires.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,424 (Enabnit; 1975), entitled APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR TRANSMITTING AUXILIARY SIGNALS ON EXISTING VEHICLE WIRING, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses communicating with low tire pressure monitoring circuits using power pulses carried on existing vehicle wiring (e.g., the turn signal circuits).
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,696 (Enabnit; 1977), entitled TIRE CONDITION MONITOR, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses a tire condition sensing circuit that includes a ferrite element that changes from a ferromagnetic to a non-ferromagnetic state in response to a temperature increase above the material's Curie point.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,157 (Enabnit; 1978), entitled SINGLE WIRE POWER/SIGNAL SYSTEM FOR VEHICLE AUXILIARY DEVICES, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses providing both power to and receiving detection signals from a remotely located condition monitoring device using a single wire with ground return through the vehicle frame.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,701 (Stanley; 1978), entitled METHOD FOR MAKING HOSE INCORPORATING AN EMBEDDED STATIC GROUND CONDUCTOR, and related U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,198 (Stanley; 1979), entitled APPARATUS FOR MAKING HOSE INCORPORATING AN EMBEDDED STATIC GROUND CONDUCTOR, both incorporated in their entirety by reference herein.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,217 (Dunn, et. al.; 1990), entitled INTEGRATED CIRCUIT TRANSPONDER IN A PNEUMATIC TIRE FOR TIRE IDENTIFICATION, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses an RF transponder in a pneumatic tire.
FIG. 1
a
of this patent illustrates a prior-art identification system (“reader”) that can be used both to interrogate and provide energy to the transponder inside the tire. The identification system includes a portable hand-held module having within it an exciter and associated circuitry for indicating to a user the numerical identification of the tire/transponder in response to an interrogation signal.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,181,975 (Pollack, et. al.; 1993), entitled INTEGRATED CIRCUIT TRANSPONDER WITH COIL ANTENNA IN A PNEUMATIC TIRE FOR USE IN TIRE IDENTIFICATION, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses a pneumatic tire having an integrated circuit (IC) transponder and pressure transducer. As described in this patent, in a tire that has already been manufactured, the transponder may be attached to an inner surface of the tire by means of a tire patch or other similar material or device.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,861 (Brown, et al.; 1993), entitled PNEUMATIC TIRE HAVING AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT TRANSPONDER AND PRESSURE TRANSDUCER, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein, discloses a pneumatic tire having an integrated circuit (IC) transponder and pressure transducer mounted within the pneumatic tire. Upon interrogation (polling) by an external RF signal provided by a “reader”, the transponder transmits tire identification and tire pressure data in digitally-coded form. The transponder is “passive” in that it is not self-powered, but obtains its operating power from the externally-provided RF signal.
The commonly-owned U.S. Patents referenced immediately hereinabove are indicative of the long-standing, far-reaching and ongoing efforts being made by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in advancing tire product technology. In particular, the lattermost patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,861 ('861), describes “a pneumatic truck tire having an integrated circuit transponder including an antenna coil which functions as a secondary winding coupled to the annular tensile member formed from steel wire and acting as a primary winding in the manner described above.” The “annular tensile member” referred to is specifically one of the tire's two spaced-apart beads which is, in effect, used as the primary winding of a transformer whose secondary winding is the antenna coil of the transponder installed within the tire. U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,217, is referenced in the '861 patent as utilizing this same sort of electric-field coupling (col. 5, 1. 10+).
The '861 patent describes difficulties of incorporating the large-loop antennas of transponders into the tire manufacturing process wherein the tire must undergo a “blow up” from a cylindrical shape into the familiar toroidal shape of tires. The use of a small planar loop antenna, as the secondary winding of a transformer and one of the tire beads as the primary winding, enables the interrogation of a tire-mounted transponder from any position about the bead. Unfortunately, while the bead thus used enables easy communication between the transponder and the interrogator device when the tire is unmounted upon a metal wheel—the use of the bead as the primary winding is adversely influenced by the close proximity of the bead to the wheel when the tire is in use. In other words, the use of the tire bead as the primary winding in a magnetically coupled transponder system presents difficulties associated with the close proximity between the tire bead and the closely adjacent metallic wheel which presents the potential for interference with the RF communication between the transponder and the external interrogator which activates the transponder.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a pneumatic radial ply runflat tire having a tread, a carcass comprising a radial ply structure having two or more plies, a belt structure comprising two or more belts located between the tread and the radial ply structure, an innerliner and two sidewalls each reinforced by one or more wedge inserts, and an electrically conductive and electrically continuous, single-turn hoop disposed radially inward of the tread and belt structure and radially outward of the carcass structure. The function of the hoop is that of a coupling element in a transformer comprising the hoop as the primary winding and the coil of a tire-mounted transponder as the secondary winding such that the tire-mounted transponder would have 360-degree readability about the circumference of the tire by a transponder i
Cohn Howard M.
Johnstone Adrienne C.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
LandOfFree
Disposition of transponder coupling elements in tires does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Disposition of transponder coupling elements in tires, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Disposition of transponder coupling elements in tires will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3162625