Microsoft And Bridgestone Develop A Tire Damage Monitoring System

Bridgestone announced that through its partnership with Microsoft, it had developed a unique Tire Damage Monitoring System. Bridgestone says that this is the first monitoring system in the world that's able to detect tire damage in real-time. Detecting tire damage is a big deal because Bridgestone says tire damage contributes to 30% of all car accidents that are caused by technical failure.The Tire Damage Monitoring System uses the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform or MCVP. Bridgestone says that tire issues take four major forms, including inadequate pressure, fatigue, irregular wear, and damage from curbs, potholes, or other hazards on the road. Most of those issues are reliably mitigated against using the current TPMS or tire pressure monitoring system that had been mandatory on all cars built since 2012.

Regular service and replacement of tires over time helps to guard against wear fatigue. Bridgestone says that the safety gap has been in monitoring tire damage, which is difficult to detect without close, manual inspection. The Tire Damage Monitoring System Bridgestone has developed allows real-time awareness of tire damage. The MCVP cloud framework works with the existing sensor data from hardware that's already installed and uses an algorithm to detect events affecting the tire surface and tire carcass.

The system allows drivers to be immediately notified of the hazard and act to remedy the situation before an accident occurs. Bridgestone says there is currently no other equivalent monitoring system available and that alternatives would require extra hardware to be installed. The system not only understands when damage has occurred but where it occurred.

The data on where the damage occurred could allow responsible agencies to fix road damage issues and help pinpoint the location of potholes and other hazards. Bridgestone's Tire Damage Monitoring System is available to all vehicle fleets and OEMs that use MCVP.