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A Battery-Less Tire Pressure Monitoring System

Conference Paper · May 2009

DOI: 10.1109/VETECS.2009.5073285 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 A Battery-less Tire Pressure Monitoring System
I-Hsiu Ho1 , Jia-min Chung1, Hsiao-Chin Chen2 , Hung-Wei Chiu1
1
Graduate Institute of Computer and Communication, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
2
Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
hwchiu@ntut.edu.tw

Abstract—In this paper, we utilize the contactless power

transmission technique in RFID system to achieve the battery-
less tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS). The system adopts
a high-efficiency Class-E Power Amplifier to transmit RF power.
The circuit for the whole power transmission circuit from the tire
transponder to the reader is modeled so as to achieve the optimal
circuit parameters for a high efficiency. This system uses the load
modulation to realize the data transmission, which includes the
temperature and pressure data of tires. The optimal speed of
45km/hr is achieved with a 1000μF VDD capacitor.

Keywords-TPMS; Battery-less; RFID; Class-E PA

I. INTRODUCTION
Due to the auto market concerned about the automobile
safety, more and more TPMS’s research has been done. A
typical example of such TPMS is a wireless system [1][2],
which is shown in Fig. 1(a). The TPMS system consists of four
battery-based wireless sensors, a high frequency (HF) antenna
and a central receiver. The wireless sensors are mounted inside
tires to measure the pressure and temperature, and send the data
to the central receiver via the wireless link. Hence, the central
receiver is able to receive the sensor signals and analyses the
data. Once the received tire information is abnormal, the
receiver would give a warning and inform the driver to take
care of tires immediately.
A typical wireless tire sensor consists of a sensing circuit, a
wireless transmission circuit and a wake-up circuit in the
TPMS [1][2]. The sensing circuit contains micro-mechanical
sensors to measure the pressure and temperature. The wireless
transmission circuit contains an RF power stage, which
generates an RF signal to an antenna. The wake-up circuit [3]
would be triggered by a 125 kHz low frequency signal to
trigger the following sensing circuit work, as shown in the Fig.
1(b). With the help of the wake-up mechanism, the battery life
would live longer even if it is equipped with many power
consuming circuits, such as the RF amplifier.
Such TPMS needs batteries to provide the power source of
the pressure sensor and wireless module in tires. However,
without a recharging power source, the system must have a
dedicated power management, which would be discussed later.
In order to resolve the battery issues in TPMS, we utilize
the RFID technique to achieve the power supplement and the
data transmission. When the vehicle moves forward, the
transponder embedded within the tire would rotate and couple
with the coil in the receiver side. In the meanwhile, power and
Fig. 1(a). A typical TPMS architecture.
Fig. 1(b). Wireless tire sensor architecture.
data can communicate so that TPMS sensor circuit doesn’t
need a battery any more
This paper aims to demonstrate the contactless link between
the receiver and the tire transponder. This sensing circuit of the
tire transponder is composed of a commercial temperature and
pressure sensor IC, MCU, an RF rectifier and a modulation
circuit. These circuits consume about 2000uA. Besides, the
distance between receiver and the transponder is separated by
10cm. In order to cope with such a lossy contactless power
transmission, we also used a high efficiency Class-E Power
Amplifier to be the power source and proposed a model to
optimize the efficiency.
II. SYSTEM STRUCTURE
Like the common RFID transponder, a tire transponder
with an RF power rectifier circuit doesn’t need any battery as
shown in Fig.2. This tire transponder also includes an antenna
coil, a rectifier and a modulation circuit. The tire transponders
are powered by the readers. The inductive power can feed the
TPMS sensing circuit so that this TPMS sensor doesn’t need a
wake-up trigger [3] circuit to save battery capacity.
We set a tire transponder with an antenna coil in tires and
installed a RFID Reader with another antenna coil in vehicle
body as shown in Fig. 2(a). Besides, the readers connect with
the central receiver. The tire transponder includes a pressure
sensor IC, MCU, an RF rectifier and a modulation circuit as

978-1-4244-2517-4/09/$20.00 ©2009 IEEE

shown in Fig. 2(b). Fig. 3 is the illustration to install the
Battery-less TPMS.
Fig. 2(a). Proposed Battery-less TPMS architecture.
Fig. 2(b). Proposed Battery-less TPMS sensing architecture.
Coil
Tire
Transponder
Fig. 3. Implementation of the Battery-less TPMS
A. Power Transmission
Nowadays, the most universal contactless power
transmission technology is RFID (Radio Frequency
identification). The most common transmission type is the
inductive coupling method as shown in Fig. 4. Usually, the
efficiency of the power transmission is not taken much into
consideration because the RFID transponder doesn’t consume
too much power. However, the tire pressure sensor IC
MPXY8000 Series used in this paper is not very low power
operation so that an efficient power transmission path is very
important. Besides, the distance between the tire and the
vehicle body must be as least 10cm. This paper uses Class-E
power amplifier as shown in Fig. 5 [4].
Fig. 4. Typical inductive coupling method
Fig. 5. Class-E power amplifier
The power transmission efficiency of the ideal Class-E
power amplifier may approach 100 percent when the behaviour
of the power transistor operates as an idea switch. Hence, the
power transistor, which turns on and off abruptly, can forms a
switching power amplifier. The switching power amplifier is
not a linear amplifier, but it doesn’t matter because the power
stage of the reader is not responsible for the data
communication but only for the power transmission. In order to
operate as an ideal switch, the timing control of the power
transistor is very critical. It is derived [4] that the working
condition of the power amplifier must meet the following
requirement:
(1)The transistor sustains a zero voltage when it carries current,
(2) the transistor carries a zero current when it sustains a finite
voltage, and (3) inevitable transition times between on and off
states are zero. From (1) and (3) reveal that the on-resistance of
the switch must be very small and the voltage applied to the
gate of the transistor must approximate a rectangular waveform.
However, even with these two conditions, (2) may still be
violated if when the transistor turns on, VDS is high.
Furthermore, in practice it is difficult to obtain sharp input
transitions at high frequencies.
According to Sokal’s Class-E PA [4], the circuit conditions
to obtain the 100 percent are listed in the TABLE I, where VDD
is 12V. The key parameter Rload is necessary to be determined
in advance so that other parameters could be derived. However,
Rload doesn’t really exist in the wireless power transmission
circuit. The Rload is the pseudo element representing the loading
circuit from the transponder via the coupling antenna coils.
Hence, Rload represents the power consuming elements, such as
MCU and the pressure sensing circuit. However, Rload is not
directly equal to these loading circuits because the antenna
coupling loses and the nonlinear circuit of the power rectifier
circuit. In order to calculate the value of Rload, the wireless
power transmission model is created as shown in the Fig. 6.
First, suppose the loading of the power consuming circuit is
R”load. The R”load could be transformed to R’load with the
following Equation (1) [5].
8
′ =
Rload ′′
Rload (1)
π2
Consequently, the tire transponder side circuit becomes a
simple parallel RLC resonant circuit, which is shown in the
Fig. 6.
 Finally, a standard Class-E power amplifier circuit model
can be obtained so that it is easier to design the power
transmission with 100 percent efficiency. The conditions of
circuit parameters achieving 100 percent PA efficiency are
summarized in the TABLE I. [4].

B. Data Transmission
The power consumption issue of a typical TPMS sensor is
important for TPMS products. The TPMS sensors in the tire
should be tiny and prevent from affecting the tire rotation
balance. Hence, it limits the size of the battery and the battery
life. However, automobile manufacturers still expect the
battery life to be as long as possible. In general, a 5 years life
Fig. 6. Rectifying circuit’s impedance transfer and the 220mAh capacity are the basic requirements of TPMS
battery. Therefore, low power IC and the power management
When the primary side antenna of the reader couples with
become necessary. TPMS usually utilizes the active mode and
the secondary side antenna of the tire transponder, the passive
hold mode to manage the power. The active mode is triggered
LC would resonate and R’load effect would appear as a reflected
when the automobile starts to run. When TPMS is transmitting
resistance, which cascades with the primary side antenna as
RF signal, the power consumption is much higher than not
shown as Fig. 7. This reflected resistance represents the
transmitting. Hence, the system has requires a lower
secondary side impedance looking into primary side antenna
transmission rate in order to save energy. It is common to use a
L1 and have the relationship with R’load as shown in (2) [6].
RC oscillator to be a wake up trigger in TPMS, the current of
Rload = ω 2 k 2 L1C2 Rload
′ (2) RC oscillator and circuit leakage amounts approximately to be
400nA, which is a large value when the system is expected to
live for 5 years.
This battery-less TPMS solves the whole battery issue. The
TPMS can continuously monitor the pressure data without
switching between hold and active mode as shown in Fig. 8. A
antenna coil of the reader, which connects with the central
receiver, is installed in the splashboard. Another antenna coil
and tire transponder is installed in the tire. However, the speed
of tire rotation becomes the main issue of this inductive
coupling technique. Because the power and data transmission
must be done within one cycle time, which is the time from the
Fig. 7. Tire transponder’s impedance transfer
coil of the transponder rotating close to and far away from the
reader coil. The data frame including synchronizing bits data,
Then, we obtain Rload from R”load as follows: pressure data, temperature data and checksum data have 65 bits
in total. In this paper, the carrier frequency is 16kHz, which
8 (3) can be used to derive that a data packet takes 4 ms to be sent
Rload = ′′
ω 2 k 2 L1C2 Rload
π2 out. If the coil is rectangular with 8cm long, a highest speed of
72km/hr can be figured out. However, the optimal moving
TABLE I. CIRCUIT PARAMETERS speed is lower than 72km/hr due to the charging time, which
would be discussed later.
Parameters Names Equations
Pout Design output power π2 +4
I dc2 Rload
8
Rload Load resistance 8Vdd2
Pout (π 2 + 4)
X/w Excess inductance πVdd2 (π 2 − 4)
2ωPout (π 2 + 4)
L Resonator inductor 8Q LVdd2
ωPout (π 2 + 4)
C Resonator capacitance Pout (π 2 + 4)
8ωQLVdd2
Cd Shunt capacitance Pout
πωVdd2
Fig. 8. Tire transponder installation
C. Modulation and Sensor Data
Once the reader transmits power to the tire transponder
through the power amplifier and the antenna coil, the
transponder VDD would rise and start to drive the MCU and the
sensing IC. It would cost some time to let VDD rise to a normal
operating voltage. However, in the process of the VDD rising,
the MCU is possible to start to run and fail. In order to prevent
this possible state, a counting loop would start before the
normal procedure running. The counting time must be larger
than VDD rise time, which depends on the VDD capacitance.
This capacitance is importance and discussed later.
The tire pressure sensing IC MPXY8000 Series fabricated
by Freescale Co. utilizes the successive approximation method
through 8bits SPI port to provide an accurate conversion of the
sampled temperature and pressure. In the first place, the sensor
received the guess value from MCU and converted it to an
analog signal to compare with the real sensing value. After the
comparison, sensor IC sends back the result of the comparator
to MCU. The benefit of this process is that MCU doesn’t have
to obtain a complete value of sensor value but just compare
with a lowest acceptable pressure value so as to save power
and sense data faster. However, the power is not an issue, so a
complete 8 bits is measured and costs only 128us.
A common transformer type communication is usually
achieved by Load-shift keying (LSK) as shown in the Fig. 9. A
resistive load-shift method is utilized because it is more robust
than capacitive type. When S1 is OFF, the impedance R’load is
R1. When S1 is ON, the impedance R’load become R1//Rs.
According to (2), the Rload is relative to the R’load. A modulated
Rload would reflect on the voltage of the antenna coil. Hence,
the demodulation circuit detects the voltage change of the
antenna coil and demodulates the digital data from the tire
transponder. Since the data are carried on the amplitude of the
antenna coil, the ASK demodulation is implemented as a
demodulation circuit which includes an amplitude detector, a
low pass filter, an amplifier and a smith trigger to restore the
digital data.
Rectifier
Fig. 9. LSK modulation and demodulation
III. RESULT AND ANALYSIS
In this paper, we didn’t really install the battery-less TPMS
sensor in a tire but on a rotating wheel, so the signal loss in
tires was ignored. First, we have monitored the power
transmission performance while the wheel was rotating. It is
achieved by adding a wireless sensor with an ADC to measure
the VDD voltage and send back to a wireless receiver. Besides, a
2K resistor is connected to VDD and ground to simulate the
loading effect of MCU and sensor IC. Therefore, we could
monitor the relationship between the rotating speed and power
transmission as shown in the Fig.10.
Voltage
Voltage
Fig. 10. Characteristics of the rectified VDD while rotating
(a) CVDD is 100μF while rotating speed is 10km/hr
(b) CVDD is 100μF while rotating speed is 30km/hr
Fig.10 shows the time response of the rectified VDD voltage
while the wheel is rotating. Because CVDD continues to be
charged and discharged, VDD ripples with the rotation.
Fig. 10(a) was measured with a lower rotating speed so that the
charging and discharge time were both larger than that in
Fig. 10(b). A larger charging time helps to achieve a higher
VDD. The tire transponder needs 3V at least to operate normally.
Hence, it can be found that running at 10km/hr speed has a
longer period where VDD is larger than 3V. Although the
minimum VDD is larger at 30km/hr than that at 10km/hr, VDD
operating at 30km/hr is never larger than 3V.
However, 10km/hr is too slow for the vehicle. The antenna
coil of the reader was enlarged to improve the performance
because a larger antenna should have longer charging time. Fig.
11(b) shows that the peak value is up to 4.8V and the 3V
period becomes longer.
Fig. 11. Characteristics of the rectified VDD while rotating speed is 10km/hr
and The CVDD is 100μF
(a) 8cm long coil (b) 80cm long coil
Because the wireless power system doesn’t have a stable
power source, a large voltage source capacitor is necessary to
store charges [7]. However, it is found that a smaller VDD
capacitance caused VDD rising up faster and higher, which is up
to a maximal 4.5V as shown in Fig. 12(a). But VDD with
smaller capacitance also felt down faster due to smaller charge
storage. On the other hand, a larger VDD capacitance caused
VDD rising up slower and lower, which is only 3V as shown in
Fig. 12(d). But VDD with smaller capacitance also felt down
faster due to the smaller charge storage. In practice, the sensing
circuit needs a 3V VDD at least to work correctly. Hence, a best
condition should be set that VDD have a largest period
remaining above 3V. Because there is a trade-off between the
power charging time and the power loss time, an optimal VDD
capacitance could be found. It is found that a 1000uF VDD V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
capacitance could has largest 3V operating time about 129 ms This work is supported by the National Science Council.
while the rotating speed is about 10km/hr.
REFERENCE
[1] Velupillai, S. Guvenc ,”Tire Pressure Monitoring [Applications of
Control],” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 22-25,
Dec. 2007.
Voltage

Voltage
[2] Yi Leng, Qingxia Li, Bin Hou, Sheng Liu, Tianlin Dong, “Wheel
Antenna of Wireless Sensors in Automotive Tire Pressure Monitoring
System,” in Proc. Of IEEE International Conference on Wireless
Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing, pp. 2755-2758,
Shanghai, China, Sep. 2007.
[3] Li Qingxia, He Fangmin, and Leng Yi, “Research on the Low-frequency
Communication Applied in TPMS,” Computer Engineering and
Applications, vol.42, no.17, pp.191-193, 2006.
[4] N. O. Sokal and A. D. Sokal， “ Class-E － A new class of high
efficiency tuned single-ended switching power amplifiers ， ” IEEE
Voltage

Voltage

Journal of Solid-State Circuits， vol. 10， pp. 168-176， Jun. 1975.

[5]
[6]
Fig. 12. Characteristics of the rectified VDD with difference CVDD
while rotating speed is 10km/hr and coil is 80cm.
(a) CVDD is 100μF (b) CVDD is 470μF(c) CVDD is 1000μF(d) CVDD is 2200μF
[7]
Since an approximately optimal CVDD is found, a maximal
rotating speed is tested up to 45km/hr, where the Manchester
encoded waveform containing pressure and temperature data
were read out from the reader’s demodulation circuit as shown
in the Fig.13.
B. Choi， J. Nho， H. Cha， T. Ahn， S. Choi，” Design and
implementation of low-profile contactless battery charger using planar
printed circuit board windings as energy transfer device”， IEEE Trans.
Ind. Electron., vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 140-147, 2004.
Z. Tang， B. Smith， J. H. Schild， and P. H. Peckham， “Data
Transmission from an Implantable Biotelemeter by Load-Shift Keying
Using Circuit Configuration Modulator，” IEEE Trans. on Biomedical
Engineering， Vol. 42， no. 5， pp. 524-528， May 1995.
Yong Li, Liji Wu, Chun Zhang, Zhihua Wang, “Power Recovery circuit
for Battery-less TPMS,” in Proc.of International Conference on ASIC
(ASICON), vol. 1, pp. 454-457, Guilin, China, Oct. 2007.

Fig.13. Pressure and temperature bits data were read out from a scope

IV. CONCLUSIONS
A battery-less TPMS with a high-efficiency PA is
demonstrated successfully. The circuit for the whole power
transmission circuit from the tire transponder to the reader is
modeled so as to achieve the optimal circuit parameters for a
high efficiency. An optimal 45km/hr moving speed is
measured with an optimized VDD capacitance and a larger
antenna design.

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