Goodyear shows 'intelligent' tyres in Geneva

ERJ staff report (LMH)

Geneva, Switzerland -- Goodyear Dunlop will show the future of tyre technologies at this year's Geneva International Motor Show: including tyres becoming more and more intelligent with the use of electronics embedded into the tyre.

The company has announced its future goal is to increase tyres' intelligence to the point that tyres are feeding back vital real-time information to the driver.

Goodyear has already enjoyed success in global motor sport and truck industries with its award-winning RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) Technology, which will be displayed at the Geneva International Motor Show.

The key element of the RFID technology is a tiny, one-centimetre chip. The microchip is built into the tyre on the assembly line and is programmed with a unique code that identifies the tyre, enabling automatic reading to see the type and size of the tyre as well as its unique identity number.

The Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship in the UK and Dunlop Motorsport Europe successfully pioneered a world first in motor sport tyre technology in 2011 with all tyres on BTCC cars - exclusively supplied by Dunlop - automatically scanned as the cars drive into the pit lane. This ensures that each car is using the correct and allocated tyres at all times.

"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. We are now at a stage where no tyre is missed and we can provide the BTCC with a 100 per accurate log of each tyre's activity," said Tony Duffy, Operations Manager for Dunlop Motorsport Europe, in a 6 March news release.

Goodyear recently also introduced the company's first commercial use of microchips in truck tyres on the new Goodyear Regional RHT II RFID 435/50R19.5 trailer tyre, which uniquely interfaces with FleetOnlineSolutions, Goodyear's internet-based tyre management program. The new tyre offers fleet operators benefits including reduced downtime, improved tyre management and greater security, Goodyear said.

Goodyear will be presenting this developments at the Geneva Motor Show, 8-18 March.

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Press release from Goodyear