Patent ID: 7832262

Claim:
A method of detecting an occurrence of hydroplaning of a tire of a vehicle travelling on wet ground, a tread of the tire being equipped with one or more sensors each capable of measuring a compression experienced locally by the tread when the tire is rolling on the ground and of producing a signal corresponding to measurements made by the one or more sensors, the method comprising: obtaining measurements of a compression when a tire is rolling on the ground; producing a signal corresponding to the measurements; extracting a portion of the signal relating to a passing of one or more sensors into an apparent area of contact between a tread of the tire and the ground; determining an instantaneous value (ΔE, R z ), corresponding to a presence of an indirect contact region of the apparent area of contact between the tread of the tire and the ground, based on the extracted portion of the signal, and; triggering an alarm when the instantaneous value satisfies a given relationship, wherein the determining of an instantaneous value ΔE includes: differentiating the signal, determining a minimum value ( d σ dx ) min and a maximum value ( d σ dx z ) max of the differentiated signal and also positions of the minimum value and the maximum value (l min , l max ), and calculating the instantaneous value ΔE to be a difference in position between the minimum and maximum values of the differentiated signal: ΔE=l max −l min .