RL Automotive has partnered with the European Space Agency on the development of AutoTrust, a data analytics solution that will see the pair quantify the accuracy of big data gleaned from vehicles. According to the company, RL Automotive currently has an 18-month, 750,000 euro contract from the European Space Agency to develop cybersecure data transfer between vehicles and the cloud.
In the US The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and ConMet announced a strategic collaboration to create combined digital solutions that will “better connect commercial truck fleets to the health of their tyres and wheel ends”. Billed as leveraging big data and utilising predict analytics, ConMet’s existing SmartHub is positioned as a stepping stone en route to autonomous vehicle technology.
Nexen Tire has shared details of how it has used Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data-driven methodology to help reduce tyre noise. The big data research for Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) was jointly conducted with Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group and Inha University in Korea. The results of the braking test performance on snow, hydroplaning, and wet surfaces showed internal and external noise generated by cars can be reduced by 1 dB (decibel) and 3 dB (decibel), respectively.
Around 80 per cent of motorists in the UK consider taking an alternative route to avoid traffic jams and congested roads. For less than half, using public transport is an option. This was the result of a survey conducted immediately before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic in March. After the Corona restrictions have been lifted, public transport will likely be even less popular and traffic congestion will become even worse – something that is of interest to the tyre business, which is keeping close tabs on miles-driven figures because they correlate with tyre demand.
Tyre people often remind us that the tyre is a vehicle’s only point of contact with the ground. This is, of course, true and a very salient point. However, as tyres get smarter, so are roads and infrastructure.
Nexen Tire has formed a strategic partnership with Plug and Play, the world’s largest corporate innovation platform and startup accelerator. Plug and Play was an early investor in Silicon Valley’s most renowned firms including PayPal, Lending Club, Dropbox and SoundHound. In doing so Nexen has highlighted its view of the importance of start-up thinking, future mobility, open-R&D and the Internet of Things (IoT) – all trends that the wider tyre industry is predicted to become increasingly involved in over time.
At the start of May, Zivojin Sekulic of GAJ d.o.o. gave a presentation on the digital transformation of the tyre industry at Guangrao Tyre Conference and Expo 2019. Shortly afterwards, he shared details of the presentation with Tyres & Accessories, which shows how digital data is affecting all parts of the distribution chain.
On 13 March Dana Incorporated released version 3.0 of its Rhombus TireAnalytics system, in the USA. According to company, the latest version comes with new capabilities to help large fleets reduce tyre costs. The third generation of the technology provides new cost-per-mile (CPM) analysis capabilities and best practice solutions that enable commercial-truck owners and fleet maintenance managers to make better data driven decisions for each application.
Phillip K Dick may well have been thinking far further into the future than the current popularisation of electric cars when he wrote his famous novella “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, however the rise of big data alongside electric and autonomous vehicles means the most advanced cars of today have an increasing amount in common with the artificial intelligence in the source material for the film Blade Runner.
This section is entitled “TPMS and sensor technology” for a reason. No longer are in-tyre sensors about measuring temperature alone. Now TPMS basically means pressure and temperature, often with the addition of algorithmically generated road feedback, load information and even wear calculations. These “big data” contributions are routinely relayed to the cloud for analysis. At the same time external tread readers are measuring similarly important data and sending that to the cloud. Put all this together and we have what Pirelli calls the “sensorisation” of the tyre business. Whatever we call it, this part of the business is now about far more than just sensing tyre pressures. And, as far as uptake is concerned, legislation and technical innovation are the key driving forces.
Wejo, a leading UK technology company which collates data from connected vehicles, has announced that its technology is now tracking seven million vehicles in 190 countries worldwide and it has acquired a Silicon Valley based technology firm as part of its expansion plans.
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