Tire industry on Track to Adopt Universal RFID Standard

During the Tire Technology Expo Conference, which was held in Hanover from 20-22 February, Pierre Loiret, who oversees norms and regulations at Groupe Michelin said that an ISO standard for RFID tire tags will be available either this year or the next.

Loiret is co-convenor on the ISO TC31 WG10 working group, representing French standards body AFNOR – along with Dong Lanfei of China’s SAX/TC19 technical committee for standardization of tires and rims.60 experts from countries like Austria, Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Thailand, UK and US are also providing support and data to the working group as part of their efforts to establish ISO TC31 WG10 as a universal standard for the adoption of RFID tags for tires.

The process began with a kick-off meeting in July 2016 and was followed by three meetings last year and one on 22-23 February, in Rome. Another meeting is scheduled for 24-25 May in Japan, with a final gathering to approve all aspects of the standard scheduled to be held in September. The working group has already delivered four ‘texts’, regarding RFID tire tags, their coding, embedding methods for RFID tags and testing methods.

The main benefit of a universal RFID standard, would be that it would help “guarantee” readability of tires throughout their life cycle right from manufacture and storage to when the tires are in use and their life comes to an end. Consumers, OEMs, dealers, retreaders and tire manufacturers would benefit from protection against ageing, theft and counterfeiting.

When it comes to the connected and autonomous vehicles of tomorrow, universal RFID tags would help to verify that the fitted tires were in good condition and are suitable for driving conditions. They would also offer predictive-maintenance functionality. Using such tires for commercial truck tires and retreads would make it easier to keep track of tire maintenance and manage inventories in fleets.

Ferm RFID and Avery Denison have already jointly announced a universal tire tread label with RFID functionality that works worldwide. Other companies are likely to follow suit soon