POWER CONSUMPTION PROTOCOL

摘要

Low power consumption protocol A telemetry unit (100) is provided for mounting inside a pneumatic tyre, which includes a piezoelectric element (114) supported in a housing (112), with an actuator (136) arranged for contact with the element (114), to deflect the element (114) in response to external forces acting on the actuator (136) during rotation of the tyre. For every rotation of the tyre, cyclic pulses of electrical charge are generated by the deflection of the element (114). The charge is stored and utilised under a power consumption protocol including the steps of: initiating power to a data measurement circuit for measuring data from the environment local to the unit (100); disabling power to the data measurement circuit; initiating power to a data transmission circuit; transmitting data from the measurement circuit; and disabling power to the transmission circuit. The power consumption protocol therefore minimises consumption of the generated power, during measurement and transmission of data by the unit (100).