Tyre maker Bridgestone has announced an investment in a new driver-in-the-loop (DiL) simulator at its EMEA R&D Centre based near Rome, Italy. Complementing its Virtual Tyre Development (VTD) capabilities, the new DiL simulator underscores the company’s commitment to fully digitalise the tyre development process. Bridgestone says the investment will allow it to combine tyre and vehicle simulations with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.
Having leveraged VTD for a decade, the introduction of a Bridgestone-owned DiL simulator empowers Bridgestone engineers to virtually reproduce tyre behaviour, vehicle interaction and response in various conditions – combined with subjective input from expert test drivers. With the help of AI technologies, this combination supports faster assessment of many more design options, accelerating progress toward target tyre performance and the virtual experimentation of new and innovative design concepts.
It adds that the new DiL simulator will help boost innovation and explore uncharted areas, while increasing speed to market and the efficiency of the development processes, plus strengthen the company’s development of premium Original Equipment (OE) and replacement products, and its collaboration with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) partners.
On-premises DiL simulation will also help accelerate the company’s sustainability journey, by reducing the volume of both manufactured tyres and physical tyre testing. Bridgestone projects that up to 12,000 experimental tyres will be saved every year thanks to this investment, while the proprietary VTD technology already leads to a reduction of up to 60% in raw material consumption and CO2 emissions in the development phase of OE tyres. For replacement tyres, the saving is at least 25%.
Leveraging data-driven predictors and physics-based simulations, Bridgestone VTD capabilities are being applied to all products, both premium and prestige OE developments as well as the company’s next-generation products.
The investment is funding a new dynamic driving simulator from VI-grade. With this simulator – expected to be fully operative by the end of 2025 – the company projects the DiL approach will be applied to up to 50% of OE developments annually. While the DiL approach is mainly currently used by Bridgestone to assess dry handling, the company is working to expand both the tyre performance areas it can assess and the market segments it can be applied to.