Patent ID: 8612088

Claim:
A system for determining if a tire of a vehicle is improperly inflated, the system comprising: a radar configured to emit a signal generally parallel to a surface the vehicle is traveling on, to detect a reflection of the signal off of an object positioned perpendicular to the vehicle, and to output an indication of a speed of the vehicle; a wheel speed sensor configured to sense a speed of a wheel of the vehicle; and a controller coupled to the radar and the wheel speed sensor, the controller configured to receive the indication of the speed of the vehicle from the radar, to calculate a speed of the vehicle based on the sensed speed of the wheel, and to determine that a tire of the wheel is improperly inflated when the speed of the vehicle calculated using the wheel speed sensor varies by more than a predetermined amount from the speed of the vehicle determined by the radar, the controller slowing the vehicle when the tire of the wheel is determined to be improperly inflated.