Tire Makers Turn to AV Simulation With Digital Twins

Paul Myles

TU-Editor

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30th January 2020

Tire manufacturers are taking a leaf out of AV simulator tests by employing similar technology to design new products.

‘Digital twins’ of new designs are tested in virtual reality alongside on-road tests of their physical siblings. Tire simulation specialist cosin employs its scientific software to run its physical tire model FTire with rFpro, developers of driving simulation software. The system uses an ultra-high resolution road model with a physically accurate tire model in real-time, claiming to improve the accuracy of data and correlation with real world results. Detailed simulated vehicles heave and pitch over rFpro’s modeled digital twins of urban city centers, highways and proving grounds.

The company claims its physics-based tire model spans primary and secondary ride allowing it to be used in a variety of circumstances, an improvement over existing lightweight Pacejka or extended Magic Formula style tire models. These, it says, are unable to cover the short wave-lengths effects coming from road surface irregularities.

Prof Michael Gipser, co-founder of cosin explained: “Coupling FTire simulation with the state-of-the-art virtual worlds that rFpro produces, means that customers can in greater detail replicate real-world driving conditions with complete confidence. Previously, the tire simulations capable of running sufficiently fast to work in an rFpro environment have been less accurate models. FTire is incredibly efficient in its ability to deliver physics-based simulation, even whilst running fast enough for real-time applications within rFpro’s digital twins.”

Enabling FTire to be used with rFpro now allows the same model to be used throughout the entire tool chain and the whole development process across all departments, from the office, HiL (Hardware-in-the-Loop) testing, through to driving simulator systems.

— Paul Myles is a seasoned automotive journalist based in London. Follow him on Twitter @Paulmyles_