Post by Bridgestone EMEA

Already this year, we’ve reached a key milestone in our digital tyre development journey with the launch of a state-of-the-art driving simulator at our EMEA R&D Centre. The Driver-in-the-Loop (DiL) simulator enables our engineers to assess tyre performance in a fully virtual environment, immersing our test drivers in a hyper-realistic environment that imitates real-world driving. With the DiL simulator, we can now combine simulations with subjective driver feedback, historical data and AI technologies – resulting in earlier and more accurate design decisions. It enables our team to evaluate a significantly more tyre specifications than traditional physical testing, in less time and across a broader range of conditions. By reducing the volume of physical tyre testing, the DiL simulator’s introduction is expected to save up to 12,000 experimental tyres annually, while also accelerating time to market. Physical testing, which remains a crucial part of Bridgestone’s development process, can now be reserved for the final stages of tyre validation.