Bridgestone Sees Industry Change and Seeks IoT Tire Cooperation

“ Tire has added new features” - Bridgestone held a technical briefing session in late November 2015 to introduce information based on the sensors provided in the tires to determine the dryness, semi-wetting, moisturizing, and mud of the road surface. New systems in seven states, such as snow, snow, and freezing.

Bridgestone tire technology features
Bridgestone tire technology features

Bridgestone said that since November 2011, it has been collaborating with Nexco Engineering Hokkaido (Nexco-Enginerring Hokkaido) to conduct verification experiments. This time, it signed an authorization agreement with the company and decided to use the new system to cope with road ice and snow.

On the day of the briefing, Bridgestone said that not only is it commercially available, the company will also consider deploying the technology on general passenger cars. It will strive to be practical before the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Most of the press conference was occupied by the technical explanations of the developers. However, the introduction was basically published in October 2011.

Why does Bridgestone introduce pavement state judging technology again at this time? This is actually due to the arrival of the era of autopilot, and the company hopes to establish a strong cooperative relationship with auto companies.

First of all, let us briefly introduce Bridgestone's road surface condition assessment technology, which has been put into practical use.

1. Use the acceleration sensor attached to the inner surface of the rubber to detect the movement of the tire.

The vibration is detected by an acceleration sensor attached to the inner surface of the tire rubber. The detected information will be sent to the vehicle-side measuring device via an antenna mounted inside the wheel cover (the part covering the tire).

2. Use a car-side measuring device to determine the condition of the road surface.

The measuring device on the car side is equipped with a computer that can perform arithmetic processing on the sent data. When Bridgestone analyzes the waveforms actually obtained on various roads, it knows the different road conditions and its waveforms are characterized by different characteristics.

The company isolated and extracted dry, semi-humid, moist, slush, snow, snow pressure and frozen seven characteristics, were quantified. Based on this, the new information sent by the sensor is compared with it to determine the road surface condition.

3. Display the status of the road on the screen to inform the driver.

The Nexco Engineering Hokkaido experimental vehicle is equipped with a system-specific display. General passenger cars can also use the display of the car navigation system.

The basic technology of the era of automatic driving

This mechanism must be equipped with general passenger vehicles. Cooperation with automobile companies and electronic components companies is a must. This is because sensor-equipped tires can be sold directly to consumers, while other measures need to be installed in advance on the car.

However, this is not the real purpose of Bridgestone's desire to join forces with auto companies.

The purpose of providing road surface condition determination technology to general passenger cars is generally two.

One is to accurately inform the driver of the road conditions in order to achieve safe driving. Today's drivers grasp the road conditions through visual observations, vibrations from the seats and the steering wheel, and change their driving style accordingly.

If the car can digitally determine the road conditions, the driver can easily deal with dark nights and sudden changes in the weather. But it is only "relatively easy".

The significance of digitization lies in another aspect: support for autonomous driving.

If the "person" is driving, the state of the road can be recognized through eyes and feelings, but "mechanics" cannot. If you don’t know the status of the road surface, you always drive according to normal conditions, and you will inevitably misjudge the speed and direction, which will easily lead to accidents. The tire's ability to “feel” the road is an essential technology that is essential to autonomous driving.

Industry structure may change

So why did Bridgestone organize this briefing session and re-introduced the already published technical content?

The answer is to show development technologies to auto companies and electronic parts companies, and promote cooperation and consultation.

Considering that the "IoT tires" equipped with sensors will be put on the market by 2020, cooperation negotiations may have made some progress.

However, at the briefing session, Bridgestone said: "(Partners of cooperation) have not yet been finalized. We hope to discuss with many partners from a wide range of areas and find like-minded partners to achieve the next phase."

Now, large-scale tire companies are developing pavement state judgment technology. Even though Bridgestone has achieved practical use throughout the world, it cannot be sloppy. Because competitors are preparing to find new ways to compete as "overlords in the era of autonomous driving."

The German mainland actively pursues mergers and acquisitions (M&A). While manufacturing tires, it also develops auto parts and autopilot systems.

It is said that the company is developing in-house integrated technology that tire companies cannot independently implement, such as the technology that directly applies the detected road surface status information to vehicle control.

In this regard, Bridgestone intends to participate in the cooperation of other companies with IoT tires that “only tire companies can develop”.

Only in the era of auto-pilot industry may change this point, in the future we must pay close attention to the global share of champion Bridgestone's developments.

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