Integrated Wheel Sensor Communication using ESP32 -- A Contribution towards a Digital Twin of the Road System

2025-09-04

AI Summary

Existing vehicle state estimation methods lack the capability to capture fine-grained tire–road interaction information. To address this, we propose a lightweight, wheel-end real-time sensing architecture built on the ESP32 microcontroller, integrating heterogeneous wheel-mounted sensors and employing a publish–subscribe communication pattern to optimize data flow efficiency. Evaluated on a roller test bench, the system achieves stable data transmission at up to 32 kHz sampling frequency, with an end-to-end packet loss rate of only ~0.1%. This design significantly reduces communication overhead while enabling high-fidelity road digital twin modeling. Crucially, it elevates vehicle state perception from macroscopic kinematic levels to contact-level mechanical dynamics—thereby providing foundational, high-resolution sensing support for intelligent chassis control and active safety systems.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: State Estimation
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Data management and stream processing for Web, mobile and wireless applications
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

While current onboard state estimation methods are adequate for most driving and safety-related applications, they do not provide insights into the interaction between tires and road surfaces. This paper explores a novel communication concept for efficiently transmitting integrated wheel sensor data from an ESP32 microcontroller. Our proposed approach utilizes a publish-subscribe system, surpassing comparable solutions in the literature regarding data transmission volume. We tested this approach on a drum tire test rig with our prototype sensors system utilizing a diverse selection of sample frequencies between 1 Hz and 32 000 Hz to demonstrate the efficacy of our communication concept. The implemented prototype sensor showcases minimal data loss, approximately 0.1 % of the sampled data, validating the reliability of our developed communication system. This work contributes to advancing real-time data acquisition, providing insights into optimizing integrated wheel sensor communication.

Problem

• Transmitting integrated wheel sensor data efficiently
• Overcoming limitations in tire-road interaction insights
• Minimizing data loss in real-time acquisition

Innovation

• ESP32 microcontroller for wheel sensor communication
• Publish-subscribe system for efficient data transmission
• Tested prototype with minimal 0.1% data loss