GENEVA, Switzerland (March 7, 2012) — Goodyear is hoping to parlay success it's had recently in motorsports with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology into progress on making the concept more roadworthy.
Over the past few years, Goodyear has used tires it has built for the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) and the FIA European Truck Racing Championship (ETRC) as test mules for the technology, which allows each tire to be identified and tracked.
Goodyear will showcase this technology over the coming 10 days at its booth at the Geneva International Auto Show, which runs March 8-18.
The key element of the RFID technology is 1-centimeter square RFID microchips that are built into each tire and programmed with a unique code that identifies the tire, enabling automatic reading to see the type and size of the tire as well as its unique identity number, Goodyear said.
The company started using this system a few years ago for Goodyear truck racing tires for the ETRC and last year added it to the Dunlop race tires it supplies to the BTCC. The series used the system, which automatically scans the cars as they drive through the pit lane, to ensure that each car is using the correct and allocated tires at all times, Goodyear said.
“This has been quite an undertaking and the BTCC's technical know-how has been of huge benefit in enabling us to perfect the new system,” said Tony Duffy, operations manager for Dunlop Motorsport Europe. “We are now at a stage where no tire is missed and we can provide the BTCC with a 100-percent accurate log of each tire's activity.”
Goodyear makes tires with the RFID tires at its Dunlop Motorsport Headquarters in Birmingham, England, and at plants in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg, and Wittlich, Germany.
While the RFID chips currently carry only identifying data, Goodyear said it may be possible in the future to make them dynamic so that real-time monitoring of various criteria also is possible. Among the company's announced goals is a pledge to increase tires' intelligence to the point that tires are feeding back vital real-time information to the driver.
Goodyear recently introduced the company's first commercial use of microchips in truck tires on its Regional RHT II RFID 435/50R19.5 trailer tire, which interfaces with FleetOnlineSolutions, Goodyear's Internet-based tire management program.
The new tire offers fleet operators benefits, including reduced downtime, improved tire management and greater security, Goodyear said.
“These new tires offer fleets significant benefits. The RFID speeds up maintenance as it allows fleets to very quickly and accurately identify the tires and link into the Goodyear FleetOnlineSolutions fleet management system,” said Jean-Pierre Jeusette, general director of Goodyear's Innovation Center Luxembourg. “Previously, each tire's six digit identity code would have to be read off the sidewall. This took time and mistakes could easily be made….”