As artificial intelligence (AI) technology rapidly advances, a wave of change is sweeping across the entire industry. Hankook Tire & Technology (hereinafter Hankook Tire) is actively utilizing AI technology in product research and development to secure future growth engines and technology-based innovation capabilities.
A representative example is the ‘Virtual Compound Design (VCD) system,’ developed by applying the recently spotlighted AI technology several years ago. The VCD system analyzes accumulated data in advance using AI technology to predict the characteristics of compounds and find the optimal compound formulation without producing prototypes or conducting tests.
Compound refers to the rubber composite made by mixing raw materials such as natural rubber, synthetic rubber, and carbon black for tire manufacturing. Since it is a core material that determines tire performance, developing the optimal compound is very challenging. It is manufactured by mixing dozens of raw materials, and the physical properties vary depending on various factors such as the mixing ratio of each raw material, temperature, tools, mixing order, pressure, time, and relationships with other materials. Because of the complex design required, a huge budget and time are needed to produce the finished product.
The VCD system efficiently handles this process. It creates a digital twin, a virtual counterpart of real-world objects, within a cloud platform and repeatedly reflects the results derived from virtual simulations back into reality to find improved outcomes. Without conducting actual tests, when a researcher accesses the AI analysis system, it compares about 100,000 formulation combinations per minute. Among them, it finds the best combination to achieve the targeted performance. This has resulted in shortening the compound development period, which used to take from six months to three years, by up to 50%.
Additionally, Hankook Tire is transforming R&D work methods by applying AI and software bots across the entire research and development process through digital transformation. The knowledge search AIQA, based on AI-powered search-augmented generation technology, summarizes only the necessary content from specialized technical documents, reducing search time by more than 80%. Previously, researchers had to open search results one by one among millions of technical documents to extract the needed information, but AI now saves that time.
The AI-enhanced robotic process automation system is also being expanded throughout the R&D process. An intelligent work platform (IWP) was developed where software bots handle simple tasks arising during research and development, such as benchmarking tire purchase requests, mass-produced tire shipment requests, and mold modification requests. By supplementing AI technology that patterns unstructured data, the bots’ performance has improved, creating an environment where researchers can fully concentrate on development tasks and enhancing R&D efficiency.
Hankook Tire also developed a ChatGPT-based electric vehicle customer voice analysis system. This helps strengthen technological innovation and quality competitiveness in the electric vehicle tire sector. It collects opinions from electric vehicle customers worldwide, including in the United States, Europe, and China, and links them with generative AI to analyze customer characteristics by region.
The company reduced the information distortion phenomenon (hallucination), which is considered the biggest limitation of generative AI, to enhance data reliability and built an integrated analysis platform that allows anyone to easily utilize data. By applying this across research and development, production, quality control, and marketing and communication activities, the company expects to significantly boost the technology and quality competitiveness of its electric vehicle tire brand, Aion.
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