Patent ID: 8106758

Claim:
A tire localization system for locating the position of a tire of a vehicle having five or more wheels, the system comprising: a plurality of tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) wheel modules of a vehicle TPMS, each TPMS wheel module being attached to each one of the wheels or a tire thereof, respectively, and each TPMS wheel module comprising a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader; and a plurality of RFID tags, each RFID tag being associated with and storing wheel position information of one of the wheels, and each RFID tag being positioned externally of its associated wheel; wherein each of the RFID readers is configured, upon activation, to interrogate its associated RFID tag, and wherein the associated RFID tag is arranged, upon interrogation, to transmit its stored position information to the RFID reader for transmission by the TPMS wheel module to a central control unit; wherein each of the RFID readers is configured to interrogate its associated RFID tag in response to an alarm situation identified by the respective RFID reader.