Enhanced safety and lifetime of e-assisted bikes with Panasonic

Panasonic, a leading producer of e-assisted bikes in Japan, offers a wide variety of products for various uses to the Japanese market. The company has implemented a tire pressure monitoring system for their TiMO A e-assisted bike, which combines the STM32F3 microcontroller and STM32Cube.AI.

Based on information from the motor and the bicycle speed sensor, the system generates a warning to inflate the tires if necessary. Their solution leverages an advanced AI function that simplifies tire air-pressure maintenance, enhances rider safety, and prolongs the life of tires and other cycle components.

By combining the STM32F3 MCU with STM32Cube.AI, we were able to implement the innovative AI function without the need to change hardware. We will continue to increase the range of models with AI functions and strive to fulfill our mission by leveraging ST’s edge AI solutions.

Hiroyuki KAMO

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SW Dev Section Manager at Panasonic Cycle Technology

Approach

The STM32F3 MCU adopted for the TiMO A is based on the Arm® Cortex®-M4 and features 128 Kbytes of flash memory, along with various high-performance analog and digital peripherals optimal for motor control. In addition to the new inflation warning function, the MCU also determines the electric assistance level and controls the motor.

Panasonic used STM32Cube.AI to reduce the size of the neural network (NN) model they developed, optimizing memory allocation throughout the development of this AI function. The tool enabled Panasonic to quickly and easily optimize their NN model for implementation in the flash memory, which has a limited capacity.

Sensor

Motor current and wheel speed sensing.