Goodyear, Intellias demonstrate 'navigation of tomorrow'

FRANKFURT, Germany — You're driving in the rain on half-worn tires that could use more air, so your on-board navigation system analyzes these situations and suggests a safer speed to travel, alerting your ADAS system to increase the distance with the car in front of you to adjust for safer braking distance.

This scenario is how driving may look in the near future.

Recently Intellias, an automotive OEM software engineering and mobility solutions provider, partnered with Goodyear to demonstrate how its software, Goodyear's Sightline and Navigation Data Standard e.V.'s NDS Live automated mobility and navigation system can work together to use road characteristics and tire- and vehicle-specific conditions for more precise calculations in navigation and driver assistance.

During a presentation June 6 at the 2024 conference of the Navigation Data Standard (NDS) Association in Frankfurt, Intellias and Goodyear presented a proof of concept showcasing how the systems could work together to improve driving safety.

Goodyear SightLine is a suite of proprietary cloud-based predictive maintenance technologies that can help fleet managers and drivers address a range of challenges, including predicting breakdowns, minimizing downtime and monitoring tire pressure and wear. It introduces algorithms that analyze tire conditions and weather factors to predict dangerous areas significantly impacting road safety.

NDS.Live is described as a new-generation of the global standard for map data in the automotive ecosystem. The highly connected "navigation of tomorrow" dynamically uses high-resolution map information, as well as vehicle and environmental data from the cloud, to help drivers get to their destinations safely. It is meant to augment driver assistance systems, intelligent e-mobility and autonomous driving.

Maps for navigation usually only provide data on roads and terrain for the destination route. But Intellias said the additional information from the tire monitoring system can provide additional information, such as calculating how the difference in braking distance or safe speed on curves will vary if the vehicle is operating in rainy or sunny conditions, or is equipped with new or worn tires.

"We are using some vehicle conditions, in particular tire conditions, to recalculate the map attributes more precisely, in particular the friction on the road," Olena Slieptsova, technical product manager for Intellias, told Tire Business.

Tread depth, tire pressure, tire type, tire load, weather conditions, friction coefficient and road surface conditions are all transmitted to the cloud and through an algorithm, a best speed advisory is determined and transmitted back to the vehicle.

The proof of concept demonstration created simulations to test different features and road conditions, along with speed and traction based on various conditions.

Based on the data, the algorithm provides the driver with safe speed values, based on weather conditions and tire status.

The system could interact with the vehicle's ADAS to initiate emergency braking, prompt the cruise control to extend the distance from the car ahead and adjust wheel speeds to reduce skidding on a turn.

In an autonomous vehicle, if there are bad weather conditions and/or poor tire and road conditions, the system would prompt the driver to take control of the vehicle.

Jonathas Lukas, manager of tire intelligence and business development at Goodyear, said the concept involves aggregating environmental data, weather conditions, road conditions and vehicle-to-vehicle connections.

"We are also extracting information from the vehicle so we can collect data from GPS, vehicle motion, onboard diagnostic or any transferable information that is required to run with the algorithms."

Goodyear is bringing all its knowledge of tires to the table, he said, "so we are collecting data about sensing and the algorithms that we have which vary from friction and adaptive tire models, predictive maintenance analysis and so on."

The beneficiary of all this is going to be the driver, he said.

By providing a warning of dangerous road conditions, "we can alert the driver of a potential hazard or a situation he might face and anticipate making the route safer or smarter or more efficient for him."

The algorithm can provide information to the driver of worn tires; alerts about ideal speed; and when to start braking due to all the various conditions.

The next level of integration is connecting with the vehicle's ADAS functions.

"If we know how worn the tires are and we know the conditions of the road, we can better estimate and predict what the braking distance would be … we can inform the vehicle system control beforehand," he said.

As tires wear, the performance changes and the vehicle controls change, he said.

"So we can inform in the real (time) the condition of the tire and apply for all these different features for the performance and the safety of the vehicle."

He said the algorithm also can predict aquaplaning situations. If the vehicle is integrated with this technology, the vehicle ADAS could take control and activate the stability control system and reduce a potential skidding incident.

For now, all this is in the concept stage but Intellius is working to integrate the NDS.Live with the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform to demonstrate how seamless operation across diverse platforms and vendors is possible, and showing the benefits of standardization and interoperability, the company said.

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is a global partnership of companies in the automotive and software industry to develop and establish the standardized software framework and open E/E (electrical/electronic) system architecture for intelligent mobility.

In its presentation at the NDS conference, the Intellias proof of concept demo showed how communication with NDS.Live Smart Layer services and speed limits processing can be accomplished by AUTOSAR's Adaptive Platform application.