Smart Tires Will Report On the Health of Roads In New Pilot Program (arstechnica.com) 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Do you remember the Pirelli Cyber Tire? No, it's not an angular nightmare clad in stainless steel. Rather, it's a sensor-equipped tire that can inform the car it's fitted to what's happening, both with the tire itself and the road it's passing over. The technology has slowly been making its way into the real world, starting with rarified stuff like the McLaren Artura. Now, Pirelli is going to put some Cyber Tires to work for everybody, not just supercar drivers, in a new pilot program with the regional government of Apulia in Italy.
The Cyber Tire has a sensor to monitor temperature and pressure, using Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate with the car. The electronics are able to withstand more than 3,500 G as part of life on the road, and a 0.3-oz (10 g) battery keeps everything running for the life of the tire. The idea was to develop a better tire pressure monitoring system, one that could tell the car exactly what kind of tire -- summer, winter, all-season, and so on -- was fitted, and even its state of wear, allowing the car to adapt its settings appropriately. But other applications suggested themselves -- at a recent CES, Pirelli showed how a Cyber Tire could warn other road users about aquaplaning. Then again, we've been waiting more than a decade for vehicle-to-vehicle communication to make a difference in daily driving to no avail.
Apulia's program does not rely on crowdsourcing data from Cyber Tires fitted to private vehicles. Regardless of the privacy implications, the rubber isn't nearly in widespread enough use for there to be a sufficient population of Cyber Tire-shod cars in the region. Instead, Pirelli will fit the tires to a fleet of vehicles supplied by the fleet management and rental company Ayvens. Driving around, the sensors in the tires will be able to infer how rough or irregular the asphalt is, via some clever algorithms. That's only one part of it, however. Pirelli and Apulia are also combining input from the tires with data from a network of road cameras and some technology from the Swedish startup Univrses. As you might expect, this data is combined in the cloud, and dashboards are available to enable end users to explore the data.
The Cyber Tire has a sensor to monitor temperature and pressure, using Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate with the car. The electronics are able to withstand more than 3,500 G as part of life on the road, and a 0.3-oz (10 g) battery keeps everything running for the life of the tire. The idea was to develop a better tire pressure monitoring system, one that could tell the car exactly what kind of tire -- summer, winter, all-season, and so on -- was fitted, and even its state of wear, allowing the car to adapt its settings appropriately. But other applications suggested themselves -- at a recent CES, Pirelli showed how a Cyber Tire could warn other road users about aquaplaning. Then again, we've been waiting more than a decade for vehicle-to-vehicle communication to make a difference in daily driving to no avail.
Apulia's program does not rely on crowdsourcing data from Cyber Tires fitted to private vehicles. Regardless of the privacy implications, the rubber isn't nearly in widespread enough use for there to be a sufficient population of Cyber Tire-shod cars in the region. Instead, Pirelli will fit the tires to a fleet of vehicles supplied by the fleet management and rental company Ayvens. Driving around, the sensors in the tires will be able to infer how rough or irregular the asphalt is, via some clever algorithms. That's only one part of it, however. Pirelli and Apulia are also combining input from the tires with data from a network of road cameras and some technology from the Swedish startup Univrses. As you might expect, this data is combined in the cloud, and dashboards are available to enable end users to explore the data.
It gives new meaning (Score:2)
What about the software updates?
It gives new meaning to the phrase, "patch your tires".
Re:It gives new meaning (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Given the climate change situation, I wouldn't listen to smart tires, they're full of hot air.
Terrible idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
per Pirelli’s own site [pirelli.com]:
Cyber Tyre technology conveys highlights Pirelli’s commitment on to future mobility and 5G connectivity. This multiple applications system will help to prevent critical situations. The next step for the future of Cyber Tyre will be the connection and consistent dialogue with other vehicles and surrounding infrastructure.
The last thing i want my car to have is 5G connectivity and a dependency on highly sophisticated software written by a for-profit company.
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The last thing i want my car to have is 5G connectivity
Your car already has this. Well no *yours* doesn't, because you drive an old clunker, but 100% of cars in Europe are mandated to have a base level of internet connectivity to comply with the eCall directive, and since the cost of providing "smart" features is no more than the cost of providing "dumb" eCall connectivity all manufacturers already provide this.
Getting upset about tires is stupid.
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The last thing i want my car to have is 5G connectivity
Your car already has this. Well no *yours* doesn't, because you drive an old clunker, but 100% of cars in Europe are mandated to have a base level of internet connectivity to comply with the eCall directive, and since the cost of providing "smart" features is no more than the cost of providing "dumb" eCall connectivity all manufacturers already provide this.
Getting upset about tires is stupid.
Curious - 100 percent is all cars. What are the retrofit plans?
I'm certainly not concerned if the tires and other things in my vehicle track my every movement - that could be extremely handy if a person is ever needing to have an alibi. Put a chip in me so no one other than me can start or drive the car, Tires and GPS all reporting my whereabouts and road conditions Timed to sub second accuracy, retrievable by me as a legal document, admissible in court as better proof than a fallible or dissembling hu
Re: (Score:2)
Curious - 100 percent is all cars. What are the retrofit plans?
Maybe you missed the opening line where I said "no you drive an old clunker". You must have missed it. Otherwise why would you think retrofitting is part of the 100%? In what world did you think I wasn't talking about new cars?
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Curious - 100 percent is all cars. What are the retrofit plans?
Maybe you missed the opening line where I said "no you drive an old clunker". You must have missed it. Otherwise why would you think retrofitting is part of the 100%? In what world did you think I wasn't talking about new cars?
I missed nothing. Perhaps I made the assumption that no one in Europe drives the horrid things we drive here. Now I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, but if I have my math straight 100 percent is the set of everything when dealing with simple things like number of cars, and not numbers that might be expressed as greater than 100 percent.
Perhaps a better phrasing would have been "All new cars since 2018 in Europe are mandated to have a base level of internet connectivity to comply with the eCall dir
Re: (Score:2)
More technology (Score:2)
I'm wondering how much extra weight, pollution and energy is added in manufacturing a car with all of these computer needed extras add to a car, from copper wires to shielding to cpu boards.
I'd want to know that the extra cost of these smart tires is worth it versus reducing the cost of a car by the extra cost or having one less car payment.
It's not a platform for selling connected services.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is almost non-existent due to the following:
A) It's a slightly more advanced version of a tire pressure sensor (which are mandated) which means swapping one chip with another.
B) According to thegarbz, "100% of cars in Europe are mandated to have a base level of internet connectivity to comply with the eCall directive," which means connectivity is already integrated in new cars.
C) The processing power needed for particular option is minimal.
I'd want to know that the extra cost of these smart tires is worth it versus reducing the cost of a car by the extra cost or having one less car payment.
Expense of production does not have a direct correlat
"Smart" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Smart hasn't been a buzzword for a long time. It's now generally accepted vernacular applied to anything that isn't completely mechanical / anything that does anything more than its primary function. Which for a standard tire is to simply spin and support a load.
Who benefits (Score:2)
Is this suppose to help the driver or the city? Where I live you can already make pothole reports to the city.
They'll Sell Info... (Score:2)
They'll sell the government information. Depending on your agency or "need", you get a package.
Highway Safety? We'll let you know the potholes.
Speeding? The Insurance companies are aching for this.
Location data? We got it.
No doubt the statement they made wasn't a lie, but they omitted a large chunk of the story.
--
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. - Peter Drucker
Re: They'll Sell Info... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
"Speeding? The Insurance companies are aching for this."
I doubt that, lots of people would by a car that cannot speed, cannot hit anything, if it would mean paying $1 insurance.
Big Bang (Score:2)
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The last time I hurt a tire, the big 'bang' as I drove over the pothole followed by the countdown of air pressure made it pretty evident. Are there really things that are more subtle that the average person worries about?
That's one thing that came to mind. The driver of the car already knows what the roads are like, so this doesn't help them. So will those who want this information buy the tires for our vehicles?
We already have vehicles that drive over the roads with downward facing devices to assess the road conditions. https://romdas.com/romdas-lcms... [romdas.com].
Other than the cost, I don't care a lot, but this seems like a much more complicated and expensive system to do something we are doing already with greater granulari
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I thought a CyberTire would want to (Score:2)
Cheaper than an employee driving around? (Score:2)
If a city wants to keep track of deteriorating roads, they can have a single employee drive around, taking notes. Low-tech, but effective, and cheap. And even in a large city, it wouldn't take that many days to cover all the roads. In Houston, for example, it's estimated there are 6,200 miles of roads. At 20 mph average, it would take less than 40 work days to cover them all. Even adding up the costs of the vehicle, wages, and planning, the cost would be far less than equipping fleets of vehicles with price
Ive heard some fucked up ideas in the past (Score:2)
But this is ludicrous.
There is nothing smart about a tyre that sheds microplastics into the environment through use,
regardless of its ability to report on road quality.
Once again another reason to accept that this civlisation is on the wrong path with a 5% change of getting onto the correct path.
Bullshit ideas like "Smart Tyres" only lend more credence to this assertion, only a fool would think otherwise.
I'm tired of all this tracking (Score:2)
Just more surveillance showing where, when, and how fast you're driving.
Don't know who Pirelli will actually be selling their data to but it won't be to the various DOT's around the world that manage road repair.
Here in Washington the repair work will keep the current schedule: Little to no repair unless it's adjacent to a politicians residence or office.
Excuse for Spying (Score:2)