Goodyear and Gatik Integrate Tire Intelligence Tech Into Autonomous Vehicles

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Gatik integrated tire intelligence technology into an autonomous driving system.

By adding Goodyear SightLine technology to Gatik’s autonomous vehicles, Gatik can collect data about accurate cornering and braking stiffness, rolling resistance and tire load, the companies said in a Tuesday (Jan. 9) press release.

With that data, Gatik can enhance the safety, accuracy and overall performance of its autonomous vehicles, according to the release.

“Being the vehicle’s only contact point to the road, the tire can play a pivotal role in enabling the vehicle to react like a driver would,” Chris Helsel, senior vice president of global operations and chief technology officer at Goodyear, said in the release.

Gatik plans to add Goodyear’s intelligent tire solution to a “significant portion” of its autonomous fleet across the United States and Canada, according to the release.

During on-road testing on Goodyear’s proving grounds, the data provided by the solution helped Gatik advance its autonomous vehicle controllers, the release said.

By communicating the data through a real-time feedback loop, Goodyear SightLine technology enabled Gatik to design its system to adapt to a variety of road conditions and enhance performance, per the release.

“The real-time data derived from intelligent tire technology not only enhances the safety and predictability of our autonomous vehicles, but also enables us to maintain high levels of efficiency, reliability and delivery uptime throughout our operations,” said Gatik Co-founder and CEO Gautam Narang in the release.

Gatik announced in March that the nation’s largest pure-play grocer, Kroger, was using its self-driving box trucks to transport products from the retailer’s eCommerce fulfillment center in Dallas to stores.

The autonomous trucking company has also worked with Walmart to move customer orders daily without a safety driver on a route in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Founded in 2017, Gatik’s “autonomous delivery as a service” solution encompasses autonomous trucks, telematics and a dispatching solution, Narang told PYMNTS in an interview posted in September 2021.

“We handle everything from obviously the driving piece to the telematics piece, making sure that our customers have insight over their operations,” Narang said.

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