Emerging Technologies

Automatic Tire Inflation Systems (ATIS) have become the predominant tire maintenance technology on today’s semi-trailers. They route air at a prescribed pressure from the trailer’s air brake system to each of it’s tires via air lines, a rotary union, and hoses.

One of ProDrive’s inventors, Clyde Stech, was a pioneer in the early years of ATIS.  His experience designing and servicing systems for many ATIS manufacturers over the years has culminated in the ProDrive ATIS, his ultimate compilation of durability, reliability, serviceability and lowest total cost of ownership.

Stech and ProDrive founder and inventor Robert Gao have patented multiple features of the ProDrive ATIS and its TPMS.

Click here to view ProDrive’s ATIS features and benefits.

Tractor compressors often deliver a maximum air pressure of 120 psi to a trailer’s air system.  When trailer tire pressures are desired to exceed 120 psi an ATIS requires a pressure booster.

ProDrive provides an optional pressure booster for such applications, allowing for tire pressures up to 145 psi for specialized applications.

ATIS have historically been passive systems, pushing a prescribed air pressure to trailer tires to ensure a minimum tire pressure, essentially preventing underinflation but unfortunately not addressing overinflation.

Trailer tire pressure often increase by 20% or more during operation due to operating conditions such as temperature, friction, wheel-end heat, etc.

ProDrive’s ATIS system not only inflates tires to a set pressure, it also allows for deflation or pressure relief when tire pressures increase beyond a desirable level.  

A typical desirable pressure increase from cold setting to peak operation can be in the range of 15-20 psi.  ProDrive’s ATIS with deflation ensures that tire pressures remain in this range, preventing both overinflation and underinflation and providing very critical equalization to keep any tire or group of tires from bearing a disproportionate amount of a trailer’s load.

Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) are highly valuable technologies for heavy-duty fleets on both tractors and trailers.  They can be used as standalone tools as well as in conjunction with ATIS.

Tractor axles are solid and don’t allow for centralized plumbing the way hollow trailer axles do, so ATIS is not commercially available for drive and steer axles.  When tire pressure monitoring and maintenance is desired on the tractor side, the solution is TPMS.

ProDrive’s ATIS + TPMS monitors tire pressures in real time on both the tractor and trailer sides.  While it inflates and relieves trailer tires intelligently it also monitors every tire on the vehicle and reports both locally to the operator and remotely to any number of platforms.

ProDrive’s TPMS reporting can provide extremely valuable data to fleet management - not only tire pressures but other vehicle conditions as well such as temperature and location.

Our TPMS sensors are mounted directly on the hubcap and convey critical data to both operator and remote fleet management; traveling and parked semi-trailer locations, speed and trajectory, tire mileage data, tire usage time, tread thickness and more.

One important feature is an early warning signal related to tire pressure and wheel-end temperature.  Temperature reporting can alert both operators and remote fleet managers to critical conditions like loss of lubricant and overheating, and in the process can prevent accidents due to wheel-end or bearing failure.

TPMS is especially valuable as an accident prevention tool in the transport of dangerous and hazardous materials.

ProDrive’s TPMS can be flexibly configured as a standalone trailer/tractor unit, a fleet with multiple tractors, trailers and drivers, and a large organization with multiple fleets and locations. Its cell phone app allows the driver's cell phone to be the data display, and its shared receiver connects not only tractor to trailer but also vehicle to vehicle to remote monitoring location.  

TPMS can be installed with or without ATIS, however to optimize tire performance throughout the vehicle and fleet it’s recommended to be used in conjunction with ATIS.

In addition to the cell phone app, a desktop app allows fleet management to monitor all conditions on all vehicles in real time via both maps and lists.  It displays pressure and temperature conditions for all tires, plus air tank and ATIS controller.

Automatic Tire Inflation Systems (ATIS) have become the predominant tire maintenance technology on today’s semi-trailers. They route air at a prescribed pressure from the trailer’s air brake system to each of it’s tires via air lines, a rotary union, and hoses.

One of ProDrive’s inventors, Clyde Stech, was a pioneer in the early years of ATIS.  His experience designing and servicing systems for many ATIS manufacturers over the years has culminated in the ProDrive ATIS, his ultimate compilation of durability, reliability, serviceability and lowest total cost of ownership.

Stech and ProDrive founder and inventor Robert Gao have patented multiple features of the ProDrive ATIS and its TPMS.

Click here to view ProDrive’s ATIS features and benefits.