CASTEL ROMANO, Italy — Bridgestone Corp. is adding a "driver-in-the-loop" (DiL) simulator at its European research and development center based near Rome to help strengthen its tire development process.
The equipment, to be fully functional by year-end, will complement existing virtual tire development capabilities to "fully digitalize" the tire development process, Bridgestone said, without identifying the simulator's supplier.
Bridgestone said the investment will enable it to combine tire and vehicle simulations with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enable "faster assessment of many more design options."
The as-yet undisclosed investment marks a "major milestone" as Bridgestone aims to build a "comprehensive ecosystem for accurately predicting tire performance," Emilio Tiberio, chief technology officer, Bridgestone West, said.
With the help of the simulator and virtual-development technology, Bridgestone said engineers will be able to reproduce virtually tire behavior, vehicle interaction and response in various conditions.
The data are then combined with subjective input from expert test drivers and processed by AI to accelerate tire development, increase speed to market and enhance the efficiency of the development processes.
Bridgestone projects that employing this type of virtual testing can reduce the number of tires used annually for testing by as many as 12,000 units. The company expects to use the technology for the development of up to half of original-equipment tires annually.
Initially, Bridgestone said it plans to use the DiL approach to assess dry handling, but that it is working to expand both the tire performance areas it can assess and the market segments it can be applied to.
Bridgestone joins Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Continental A.G., Group Michelin, Nexen Tire Corp., and Pirelli Tyre S.p.A. as tire companies employing advanced driving-simulation systems to help improve and accelerate tire development.
