Introduction

Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) are electronic systems in motor vehicles used to monitor the air pressure inside its tyres. Several
years ago, TPMS were installed as a factory default in high-end vehicles only. This was generally because extending the technology to mid-
range-higher volume production models would require that the systems be more cost effective. However, due to legislations and improvements in
technology, there are increasing number of low-end vehicles fitted with TPMS and also a significant increase in the availability of after-market
systems.

Aims & Objectives

The aim of the Project was to develop a demonstrator system to evaluate the feasibility of using
the Zigbee communication protocol to implement a wireless tyre pressure monitoring system
using various power saving techniques for conserving the system’s battery life.

System Hardware Architecture Project Tasks

1.Construction of a Combined pressure and temperature
sensor circuit
2.Developing the control and measurement application
PICDEM Z Board Sensor
using the C programming language
3.Interfacing the sensor circuit with a Microchip PICDEM Z
Tyre Unit evaluation board running the developed application
4.Testing and assessing the functionality of the system

Results
Zigbee Wireless While testing the system’s overall functionality, it was
Communication established that
Link
•The Control unit was able to communicate with the tyre unit
PICDEM Z Board and vice versa.
•The tyre unit was able to send data when an event
Control Unit requiring it to do so occurred.
•The tyre unit transmits data based on necessity rather than
in a pre determined pattern to the Control unit. This makes
the system Battery efficient.

Conclusion Control unit operation Tyre unit operation

Based on analysis and values obtained from the datasheets
of the components used in the design of the system and the
Power On / Power On /
tests carried out, it was found that the system, whilst Reset Reset
operating in driving mode and transmitting data draws
29.04mA of current. In driving mode without sending data, it
Initialize Hardware
draws 8.66mA and in parking mode, it draws 23.5 µA. Also, Initialize Hardware

it was found that when the tyre unit is in driving mode and
receiving data, it consumes 30.44mA and when in parking Form Network Join Network
mode and receiving data, it consumes 21.80mA. It was then
estimated from the current consumption in these different
modes that the average life expectancy of the battery in a F F
wireless TPMS using Zigbee is 5 years. It was concluded Retry Limit Retry
Success F T
that it is feasible to implement a wireless tyre pressure Exceeded Success F Limit T
Exceeded
monitoring system using Zigbee as its communication
T T
protocol.
Run Stack & Application Run Stack & Application
FSM FSM

Project Team
• Student: Odafe Ojenikoh - oo24@kent.ac.uk
• Supervisor: Adam Jastrzebski - A.K.Jastrzebski@kent.ac.uk