E!11566 Treadstar

A sensor has been developed for the detection of critical tread depth on car tires with automatic notification. The sensor contains of two main parts a battery part and a transmitter part. The battery part is made up of two metals that, together with an electrolytic material, is charged when it comes in contact with moisture / water, when the tire is worn down to a preset level. This current is used to activate the transmitter part to transmit the warning signal. A transceiver has been developed to be placed inside the vehicle that forwards the signal with information about car / tire type / location etc to a cloud based database which in turn sends the notification to the driver / owner etc. There will also be a visual signal in the car. The sensor with or without receiver shall be distributed directly to tire manufacturers and or directly to major end users / car manufacturers. During the project period, a sensor adapted for truck tires and SUV tires was developped. For these tires one can use a height of the sensor of 5.5 mm which gives an activation height of 3 mm which is the recommended minimum tread depth. Passenger car tires will need a sensor with a maximum height of 3.5 mm, and it is planned to develop this after the end of the project in 2020. The concept will be the same, the only difference will be that the sensor's building height will be reduced by a total of 2 mm. In recent months, tests have been done with a smaller BLE transmitter that can allow all components to fit on one card, avoiding the need for a costly AISIC and yet achieve a building height of 3.5 m. A new production method (patent application NO-20181323) has been developed to produce the sensor board where the battery portions are an integral part of the PCB consisting of 2-3 interconnecting cards (Kapton) which are folded over one another to minimize the total size and have direct connection between batteries and electronics. To ensure sufficient moisture is added to the battery part, use PVOH (Poly Vinyl AlcoHol) material that absorbs moisture and is formulated to release water to the battery part when the amount is sufficient. (Patent Application NO-20180811) This technology allows the sensor to be used in other applications to detect humidity. The sensor draws moisture out of the environment after a given threshold level that is "released" when the quantity is sufficient to activate the sensor. The sensor is mounted by A) Mounting the tire in cavities adapted during tire production or B) by retrofitting using the same method as to "spike" a winter tire.

Prosjektet har vært en viktig bidragsyter til at, direkte varsling av slitte dekk som produkt, vil bli realisert. Samarbeidet internasjonalt med viktige aktører har sammen med den rammen som prosjektet ble satt opp i, "tvunget" selskapet til en profesjonalitet i prosjektutvikling og prosjektledelse, som for et lite selskap har vært verdifullt verktøy for å kunne realisere ideen. Selskapet har opparbeidet betydelig merkompetanse innen, RF- og antenne teknologi, mikroelektronikk og elastomerer. Langsiktige effekter av prosjektet vil forhåpentligvis være at det bidrar direkte og indirekte til større fokus på betydningen av å bare benytte dekk med tillatt mønsterdybde, og derved høyere trafikksikkerhet. En spinoff av prosjektet vil være at teknologien ved å kombinere våtcelle batteri løsning kombinert med PVOH materialets evne til å ta fuktighet for aktivering ut fra omgivelse, vil kunne få stor betydning for tidligvarsling av fuktskader.

Projektets hovedmål er å utvikle og industrialisere en sensor for automatisk varsling av slitasje på dekk. Sensoren settes inn i dekket og sender en melding trådløst til mottager når mønsterdybden er slitt ned til et predefinert nivå.