GO AHEAD, lean into AI and smart testing

HBK, VI-grade's Smart Prototype Summit shows just how fast the auto industry is moving.

If you want to improve a vehicle's dynamics, you'll inevitably have to deal with wheels and tires. The trouble is that understanding tires - how they behave in an endless variety of circumstances - is a complicated science. If tires were easy, HBK and VI-grade's annual Smart Prototype Summit (SPS), held in Udine, Italy, would look quite different.

Given VI-grade's work on vehicle dynamics, it's not a surprise that, each year, SPS features plenty of companies that work on tires and wheels, including simulation to on-road testing. One example is Ford Motor Company, which today measures, organizes and analyzes road load data using HPK products (VI-grade is part of HBK's Virtual Test Division) as an update to the nCode-based Corporate Road Loads system the automaker used for decades. Given that data now comes from any number of sources, including proving grounds, connected vehicles, an engineer or automated driver using a virtual vehicle on a virtual proving ground, all the information can get unwieldy.