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Sumit Das
Sumit Das

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Transforming Automotive Industry by Bringing IoT in Smart Tyres

In contemporary times, technology has spearheaded the progress of systems and operations in almost every domain. So, why should the automotive industry lack behind? When you drive a vehicle on an under-inflated tyre, it may lead to a catastrophic event or events. According to the UK government statistics, one out of 12 tyres of heavy-good vehicles is underinflated. 

To avoid such catastrophic situations, we ought to work smarter to make smart tyres with the aid of advanced technology. So, let’s dig deeper and know about different tyre evolutions.

ContiConnect launched by Continental to monitor commercial fleets digitally. 

ContiConnect comprises three integral parts, which are tyre sensors, yard reader station, and software. 

A tyre sensor is present on the inner liner of your car tyre to measure its pressure and temperature. You may purchase ‘Intelligent Tyres’ from Continental for cars, buses, trucks, etc. with the pre-fitted sensors. Tyre’s sensor works on #IoT #SIM Technology from Vodafone

Yard reader station serves as a gateway that is installed on the premises of the company with commercial vehicles passing regularly through it. The system may occupy the position closer to fuel stations, security checkpoints or the washing bays. The yard reading station acts as the connector between the tyre sensor and software platform of Continental, which reads the data from sensors as cars or other vehicles and then passes it to the back end to perform analysis. 

The underlying software has a web portal which is used to monitor tyres at the fleet operator by employees. It shows- the history of tyres and incites them to perform further analysis. 

Tyre temperature and pressure are not sufficient to make your car’s tyre smart. It must work with different monitoring systems to provide indications about air-pressure, puncture probability, and temperature, etc.

A smart, IoT driven tyre stores data on road conditions and driver’s behaviour. Didn’t your car slow down on bumpy roads? Does the driver apply frequent sharp brakes? A smart tyre can adjust the pressure and tyre’s width according to the driving conditions. Suddenly, rain starts or snowfalls.

When everyone is striving to develop smarter tyres, Pirelli’s Cyber Car strategy at the Geneva International Motor Show makes each tyre communicate with the computer of a car to ensure safety and make your drive more economical. 

Goodyear at the Geneva Show introduced ‘Oxygene’- a new tyre concept. This depicts the moss growing inside the sidewall of the tyre. As per the company, this open structure and smart tyre’s tread design absorb water from the road and circulates it, which enables the process of photosynthesis by which oxygen gets released into the air.

More interestingly, the tyre uses super-advanced technology like LiFi to encourage high-capacity connectivity of mobile, which connects tyre to the IoT. This establishes communication with on-board computers. 

Goodyear also introduced Optix:- a tyre management programme like ContiConnect. It also has sensors, a mobile application and a cloud-based platform.

There are various types of ideas originating to innovate car tyres and make the lives of commuters even simpler.

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