Tire Grip Enhancement

Vehicle control system that assists off-road driving in rutted terrain by providing guidance to the driver. The system uses sensors to detect rut characteristics and proximity of the vehicle body to the ruts. If the body is too close to the ruts, it defines a strategy to position the vehicle at a higher ground clearance point. It then provides guidance to the driver to execute the strategy. This helps prevent getting stuck in ruts and improving traction. The driver can select an off-road assistance mode that enables this feature.

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Tyres for vehicles with improved grip, wear resistance, and low weight. The tyres contain a rubber matrix with functionalized carbon nanoparticles like graphene and carbon nanotubes. The functionalization improves dispersion of the carbon nanoparticles in the rubber. This provides better grip, structural and chemical properties, and abrasion resistance compared to unfunctionalized carbon nanoparticles. The functionalization involves treating the carbon nanoparticles with chemicals like nitric acid to modify their surface.

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Vehicle control system and method that accurately estimate tire slip limits and maintain tires in the elastic slip state for improved traction and stability. The system estimates tire stiffness and road friction based on vehicle dynamics like speed, acceleration, and torque. It then calculates the adhesion limit driving force for each tire. By controlling the drive source and brakes to keep tire forces below this limit, the tires operate at a constant slip angle. This prevents excessive slippage or locking that can lead to instability. The estimated tire properties also account for factors like load changes and attitude to improve accuracy.

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Tire with improved braking performance and reduced noise compared to conventional tires with shoulder sipes. The tire has a tread with specific sipe configurations on the shoulder region. The sipe design involves chamfered edges on the shoulder sipes. During braking or cornering, the chamfered edges prevent the sipe edges from getting pulled inside the land region and lifting the surface, allowing better grip and braking performance compared to conventional sipes. The chamfered edges also reduce the noise generated by the sipes contacting the road. The tire also has sipes only on the ground contacting surface of the first shoulder land region between the edge and tread, which further improves braking performance by preventing lifting of the land region.

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Optimizing traction control for a transport vehicle like an automated guided vehicle (AGV) in a goods transport system to prevent wheel slipping during acceleration, deceleration, and on inclined paths. The method involves dynamically distributing torque between the front and rear wheels based on the vehicle's speed and path incline. A motion controller generates separate torque signals for the front and rear wheels by adjusting the distribution to improve traction on the specific conditions. This allows maintaining traction and preventing wheel slippage on challenging paths and speeds.

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Optimizing the performance of an autonomous race car to reduce lap times during a race. The system monitors real-time parameters like tire wear, road conditions, and weather during a race. It compares these to initial values to detect errors between planned and actual car behavior. If errors are found, the system learns deductions like insufficient friction or acceleration. It then generates corrective actions like adjusting acceleration or avoiding certain sections to improve lap times.

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Pneumatic vehicle tires with improved wet grip and better transmission of tractive force as the tread wears. The tires have treads with profile ribs having sipes that extend parallel to each other. The depth of the main portion of each sipe is less than the depth of the edge portion that leads into the cavity between the rib and groove. This configuration allows good wet grip as the depth of the main sipe portion reduces with wear, while still maintaining stiffness from the wider cavity portion.

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Rubber composition for tires with improved wet grip and ice grip performance. The composition contains a specific diene rubber with a weight average molecular weight of 5,000 to 50,000 and a unique structure. The rubber has a high mol % of 1,2-bonds in the butadiene units, but also contains specific structural units represented by the formula (1). This composition, when crosslinked, provides tires with enhanced wet grip and ice grip properties compared to traditional rubber compounds.

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Tire tread for heavy construction vehicles that improves grip, especially on muddy terrain, while also increasing wear resistance. The tread has blocks with concave contact faces and a distribution of radial heights between the inner and outer portions that allows better penetration and anchoring. The concave contact faces have at least three pairs of sides forming angles greater than 180 degrees. This shape provides better grip and traction compared to convex contact faces. The radial height of the outer penetration portion is 0.1-0.6 of the total block height.

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Pneumatic tire design that improves both wet and dry steering stability without compromising one over the other. The tire has outer side profiles with multiple curved lines of different shapes between the tire edges. This reduces the difference in ground contact pressure between the edges and center. This balances wet steering benefit from better drainage with dry steering by distributing force more evenly. The inner side profile can have 1 or more curved lines.

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Pneumatic tire with improved grip and durability at high speeds. The tire has a tread with at least two rubber compounds with different thermal conductivities in the ground contacting surface. This allows efficient heat dissipation during high-speed running to prevent excessive heat buildup. The tire also has specific dimensions and groove geometry to further enhance grip and durability.

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Polydiene rubbers with improved properties for tire applications, made by polymerizing diene monomers with functionalized comonomers containing alkoxy silyl groups. The functionalized comonomers have repeating units derived from the functionalizing comonomer. The functionalized rubber polymers have better interactions with fillers and improved tire properties compared to non-functionalized diene polymers.

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Predicting road surface operating conditions like friction for improved vehicle control and safety. It uses a combination of shared vehicle fleet data and real-time sensor readings to generate personalized friction models for individual vehicles. The shared model is created by a remote server based on sensor data from many vehicles. Each vehicle then uses the shared model along with its own readings to predict upcoming friction. This provides more accurate friction estimates compared to just using real-time sensors. The shared model enables leveraging fleet-wide experience to improve friction prediction for individual vehicles.

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Rubber composition for tire treads that provides improved wet grip and rolling resistance compared to conventional rubber compositions. The composition contains specific ratios of styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), ethylene-propylene-diene rubber (EPDM), silica, and zinc oxide. The composition also has a specific styrene content in the SBR, vinyl content in the SBR, and glass transition temperature (Tg) of the SBR. Cross-linking the composition improves wet grip and maintains rolling resistance compared to cross-linking conventional rubber compositions.

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A drive module for a mobility vehicle with increased steering and traction capabilities compared to conventional wheeled vehicles. The drive module uses three independent motors to rotate, steer, and lift the wheel independently. One motor rotates the wheel, another steers it, and the third lifts it. Sensors detect the motion of each motor. This allows the wheel to move in 3D and adapt to terrain. It provides more freedom and versatility compared to traditional 2D wheeled vehicles.

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A tire design with improved braking performance on dry roads without compromising wet grip and noise levels. The tire has a tread with multiple circumferential grooves separating land portions. The land portions each have sipes that communicate with the circumferential grooves. The sipes have widened sections near the outer edge. One unique feature is that the widened section of the shoulder sipe overlaps the widened section of the middle sipe in the tread view. This improves rigidity while reducing noise. The shoulder sipe also has an angled section toward the outer edge. The depth of the shoulder sipe widening is less than the middle sipe widening. This asymmetry reduces edge deformation and shearing during braking.

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Upgrading micronized rubber powder (MRP) for large-scale reuse in tires by chemically activating the powder to improve performance. The activation involves treating the powder with silane during grinding to prevent sticking and using silica as a dusting agent. This functionalizes the powder surface to enhance vulcanization and dispersion in rubber compounds. The activation step involves contacting the powder with silane, silica, peroxides, or other activators. This allows using lower amounts of MRP in tire formulations compared to unactivated powder, which improves properties like tear strength, abrasion resistance, and dynamic performance.

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Improving the accuracy of simulations for autonomous vehicles by dynamically assigning friction coefficients based on real-world sensor data. The method involves associating predetermined friction coefficients with road features, receiving sensor data from the AV to identify those features, then assigning the appropriate coefficient from the predetermined values. This allows simulation of AV interactions with road conditions matching what was actually encountered. Factors like environmental sensors, operational states, and machine learning are used to determine the environmental conditions for each feature. This allows the simulation to accurately account for real-world driving conditions.

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Pneumatic tire with improved wet grip and noise reduction compared to conventional tires. The tire has a tread design with a specific pattern layout and feature sizes. The tread has an outer main circumferential groove extending around the tire circumference. The main groove has multiple circumferential main grooves spaced apart by circumferential land portions. The tread also has multiple lateral grooves extending between adjacent circumferential main grooves. The lateral grooves have multiple lateral land portions between them. The main grooves have a maximum depth greater than the lateral grooves. The lateral grooves have a maximum width greater than the circumferential main grooves. The circumferential main grooves have a maximum width greater than the lateral land portions. This tread layout with specific dimension relationships improves wet grip and steering stability while also reducing noise compared to conventional tires with different tread patterns.

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Estimating the maximum road friction coefficient for a vehicle to improve stability control and autonomous driving safety. The method involves artificially generating wheel slip by differentially braking or accelerating the front and rear wheels. Slip compensation is applied to account for tire forces. The wheel speed difference after slip compensation is used to estimate the maximum friction coefficient. This provides a more accurate and reliable estimate compared to just using wheel speed differences.

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