Medical Definition of adhesive. 1: an adhesive substance; especially : a substance (as glue, starch, paste, or mucilage) that bonds two materials together by adhering to the surface of each.
The sensors physically measure the tire pressure in each tire and report it to the vehicle's instrument cluster or a corresponding monitor. Some units also measure and alert temperatures of the tire as well. These systems can identify under-inflation in any combination, be it one tire or all, simultaneously.
The presence of standard rubber valves in the wheels normally indicates the vehicle uses an indirect tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) that compares tire revolutions when the vehicle is in motion by monitoring the ABS speed sensors.