INTELLIGENT TIRE-BASED ROAD FRICTION ESTIMATION SYSTEM AND METHOD

A road friction estimation system and method for a road on which a vehicle is traversing is disclosed. The system comprises: a vehicle (22) having at least one supportive vehicle tire (10), the vehicle tire (10) having a tire cavity (16) and a ground-engaging tread (14), and the tire (10) having a plurality of tire-specific parameters; a plurality of tire-affixed sensors (18) mounted to the tire operably measuring the tire-specific parameters to generate tire-specific information; a plurality of on-board vehicle sensors mounted to operably measure a plurality of vehicle-specific parameters to generate vehicle-specific information; a model-based tire force estimator (32) operable to generate a model-derived tire force estimation; a vehicle observer (46) operable to generate an observer-derived tire force estimation; and a friction estimator operable to generate a road friction estimation from a comparison of the model-derived tire force estimation and the observer-derived tire force estimation.