Bridgestone has invested in a new driver-in-the-loop (DIL) simulator at its EMEA R&D Center near Rome in Italy. Complementing its virtual tire development (VTD) capabilities, the new simulator will enable Bridgestone to combine tire and vehicle simulations with AI technologies.
Bridgestone has used VTD for a decade. Having its own simulator will enable engineers to virtually recreate tire behavior, vehicle interaction and response in various conditions. With the help of AI, this combination supports faster assessment of many design options, accelerating development toward targets.
The new simulator will help Bridgestone boost innovation, increase speed to market and improve development efficiency. The investment also strengthens the company’s development of premium OE and replacement products and its collaboration with OEMs, because these new capabilities mean tires and vehicles can be developed in parallel.
On-premises DIL simulation will also help accelerate the company’s sustainability journey. By reducing the volume of manufactured tires and physical tire testing, Bridgestone believes that up to 12,000 experimental tires will be saved every year.
The simulator is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2025, and the company expects that the DIL approach will be applied to up to 50% of OE developments annually. Although the DIL approach is mainly used by Bridgestone to assess dry handling, the company is working to expand the tire performance areas it can assess and the market segments it can be applied to.
“This investment in our internal DIL simulation capabilities is a major milestone as we build a comprehensive ecosystem for accurately predicting tire performance in the virtual world. It also gives us the capabilities to experiment with new and innovative combinations of designs and materials in a fully virtual environment,” said Emilio Tiberio, chief technology officer at Bridgestone West.
