AUTOFORUM

Continental celebrates One Million trips on its fully automated Tyre Braking Test Facility

Apr 15, 2024 Continental, AIBA (Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer), fully automated tyre braking test facility, Meletis Xigakis,

Continental celebrates One Million trips on its fully automated Tyre Braking Test Facility

Continental has carried out more than a million trips on its fully automated tyre braking test facility known as the AIBA (Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer) since 2012. The facility, which is unique worldwide, enables precisely reproducible test processes to check the performance of new car and van tyres on different road surfaces – dry and wet – under laboratory conditions.

Its advantages lie not only in the special test environment. In the facility, unmanned, rail-guided vehicles are automatically accelerated to speeds of up to 120 km/h along a track almost 100 metres long. They are then braked autonomously on a 75-metre long braking track. No fuel is required for this process. This is because the acceleration takes place with the help of an electromagnetic linear drive borrowed from modern roller-coaster technology. The AIBA facility also eliminates the need for the many kilometres of driving that are required on normal test tracks for starting off and pulling away. The test facility is thus an example of Continental’s strong commitment to maximum driving safety in traffic. It reflects the company’s comprehensive efforts to develop and produce increasingly environmentally friendly tyres.

“Even after being in use for more than 10 years, we can achieve a particularly high level of comparability of the test results in a fully air-conditioned, weather-independent, and fully automated environment,” explained Meletis Xigakis, Head of Global Tyre Testing at Continental. “Braking is essential for road safety. That’s why we put a lot of effort into being able to analyze the performance of our tyres as precisely as possible.” Around two-thirds of all tyre braking tests at Continental take place in the AIBA facility. The focus here is on prototypes of new tyres, for which the interaction of new or modified rubber compounds and tread designs is validated and further optimized. It is also used to verify the performance of a new serial tyre. Since commissioning, developers have tested more than 130,000 tyres.

In contrast to virtual simulations, the fully automated tyre braking test facility uses real vehicles on real road surfaces. This enables efficient, precise, and comparable tyre tests – regardless of changing external influences such as temperature, wind, and sunlight. The braking tests can even be carried out independently of vehicle-specific properties. Continental has also been testing tyres since 2022 with the help of the Analytical Vehicle AIBA (AVA). This is a fully electric, driverless test vehicle developed in-house that can be used instead of a serial car or van.

The physical tests in the AIBA facility are an integral part of extensive testing procedures that Continental uses, this also includes test drives to determine the subjective road performance of tyres with professional test drivers, which are carried out on Continental’s worldwide test tracks.