Air spring containing an active device and a suspension assembly and method using

摘要

An air spring has a pair of spaced end members and a fluid pressure chamber therebetween formed by an elastomeric flexible sleeve. The air spring is adapted to be mounted on a vehicle suspension system in close vicinity to one of the vehicle tires. The air spring and the vehicle tires each includes a monitoring device for sensing an engineering condition of the air spring and/or tire. The tire monitoring device transmits the sensed engineering condition of the tire to the air spring monitoring device which retransmits to received tire data and the collected air spring engineering condition data to a distance location with less power and more efficient signal than possible if transmitted directly by the monitoring device of the tire due to the reduced wall thickness of the sleeve of the air spring in contrast to the sidewall thickness of the tire. Both the air spring and tire may contain stored ID information pertaining to the particular air spring and tire in which they are contained, which information also can be transmitted by the air spring device to a remote location. A height sensor may be contained within the air spring and coupled with the air spring transmitting device to provide additional operating information to an interrogator at a remote location.