For the sake of safer and more sustainable goods movement through autonomous transportation, Goodyear and Gatik have proof that intelligent tyres powered by Goodyear SightLine technology can accurately help to estimate tyre-road friction potential and provide real-time information to Gatik’s automated driving system.
“This new level of data sophistication can communicate vital information to the vehicle, enhancing safety and performance,” said Goodyear’s senior vice president of global operations and chief technology officer Chris Helsel.
“This is another step to evolve the tyre to not only deliver its core traditional job but also be a nexus of new data and information,” added Helsel.
The breakthrough is said to add greater utility to what a tyre can deliver by providing critical data to help enhance vehicle safety and performance – thereby increasing efficiency and value for Gatik’s customers in the business-to-business (B2B) short-haul market.
Both companies recently deployed their road-friction detection capabilities in Canada through continuous measurement of tyre sensor-derived information while being paired with other vehicle data and connected to the American tyre maker’s cloud-based proprietary algorithms to optimise vehicle performance.
Friction estimates from Goodyear’s SightLine solution successfully detected low-grip situations including snowy or icy conditions.
The information was made available to Gatik’s autonomous fleet, enhancing safety and performance for Gatik’s commercial operations in Canada’s challenging winter climate.
With road-friction data, tyres can help enable smoother, safer and more sustainable driving.
The information for autonomous vehicles helps in path planning and providing recommendations for safe driving speed, vehicle acceleration limits and vehicle following distance.
The technology is designed to measure the tyre’s wear state, load, inflation pressure and temperature by combining real-time road-weather data and proprietary rubber friction models to estimate the tyre-road friction potential.
Gatik’s fleet is then able to respond to such challenging conditions in a more safe and efficient manner within its operational design domain (ODD) with such real-time information enables Gatik’s fleet.
This year, the tyre maker’s technology could see deployment on select original equipment vehicles to bring about immediate utility to today’s mobility market.
“At Gatik, we’re dedicated to providing our customers with a solution that continues to raise industry standards in safety, efficiency and performance,” said Gatik chief technology officer and co-founder Arjun Narang.
Narang added that using Goodyear’s groundbreaking SightLine technology has helped operationalise such principles to ensure the delivery of greater value and enhance safety on the middle mile today.
