Development of a Low Cost Slip Angle Sensor

Abstract

For all road vehicles, as tyres are the only part in contact with the ground, all dynamic forces that act on the vehicle must be reacted through the tyres. Tyres are capable of generating forces through the deformation of their surface in contact with the ground. This deformation of the tyre is known as slip. Two different parameters for slip can be measured, slip ratio, the difference between the speed of the driving tyres to ground speed, and slip angles, the angle difference between the travel of and the pointed direction of the tyre. The measurement of slip angles is currently difficult, with either indirect measurement methods being employed or expensive and limited specialised sensors used. This project repurposes an optical sensor from a gaming mouse as a cheap, yet accurate, alternative, opening up the measurement and analysis of slip angles to more people. The final sensor package is able to accurately measure slip angles, with a mean angle error of 0.0461 degrees and standard deviation of 0.1066 degrees, in a lab setup. It is also able to measure slip angles over a large range of environmental and packaging variables.