The progression of RFID inspired applications is at that exciting time when many are having aha moments and extending the technology into new corners of utility. A good example is what is happening with car tires. Michelin started embedding RFID chips into its tires some time ago. Other tire manufacturers have followed.
Now, in an announcement I read at the Automotive Design and Production website, comes an article about Siemens VDO Automotive and Goodyear extending RFID functionality to incorporate tires into the vehicle's local area network. They have created the Tire IQ system. More than a tire pressure monitoring system, Tire IQ effectively "wires" the tires into a vehicle’s electronic network, providing information on tire performance in addition to monitoring air pressure and temperature.
“It can provide a full range of data including tire stiffness and strain in the tire wall as a vehicle is undergoing a turning or braking maneuver,” says Ken Chance, business development senior engineer at Siemens VDO Automotive. And that opens up a lot of possibilities for improving ride and handling. Chance notes that current ride control systems (like vehicle stability control) base their calculations on general tire parameters since they have no access to real-time data. But with Tire IQ, “You would have millisecond-by-millisecond information coming back from the tire on its state,” he says. Ride control systems could then be programmed to precisely compensate for factors like the reduction in stiffness that occurs when a tire gets warmer during a drive, resulting in improved handling dynamics.
As others begin to comprehend the benefits of having everything, yes everything, connected digitally on the Internet, the number of applications that use RFID in creative ways will multiply.
