Patent ID: 8836495

Claim:
A wheel position identifying device for a vehicle, comprising: a plurality of transmitters associated with wheels of the vehicle, respectively, each of the transmitters including: a dual axis acceleration sensor detecting a normal-direction acceleration and a tangential-direction acceleration of the wheel associated with the transmitter, the normal-direction acceleration being an acceleration in a direction normal to a circumferential direction of the wheel, the tangential-direction acceleration being an acceleration in a direction tangential to the circumferential direction of the wheel; and a first control unit determining whether the wheel associated with the transmitter is a right wheel or a left wheel based on a sign of a product of a time differential value of the normal-direction acceleration and the tangential-direction acceleration, and storing data regarding a determination result in a frame as wheel position determination data; and a receiver mounted on a body of the vehicle, the receiver including: a receiving antenna; a receiving unit receiving the frame transmitted from each transmitter through the receiving antenna; and a second control unit receiving the frame from the receiving unit and determining whether the transmitter transmitting the frame is associated with the right wheel or the left wheel based on the data stored in the frame; wherein the first control unit determines whether the wheel associated with the transmitter is a front wheel or a rear wheel based on an acceleration state of the wheel whether the wheel is in an accelerating state or in a decelerating state and an effective radius of a tire of the wheel obtained from the tangential-direction acceleration, and the first control unit establishes a position of the wheel as front right, front left, rear right, or rear left based on the determination result indicating whether the wheel is the right wheel or the left wheel and a determination result indicating whether the wheel is the front wheel or the rear wheel, and the first control unit stores an established position of the wheel in the frame as the wheel position determination data.