KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Dana is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year, as a supplier of Central Tire Inflation Systems (CTIS) to the military and commercial vehicle industries. 

Initially developed to meet the requirements of the US military in 1984, Dana says that it is now supplying CTIS to OEMs in North America, and several OEMs throughout the world, including a variety of specialty vehicle manufacturers.

“Dana CTIS is selected by more military vehicle OEMs than all of the competitive systems combined,” said James Beverly, chief engineer of advanced chassis control systems for Dana. “The product is used extensively by the US Army and Marine Corps, as well as NATO forces, and in a variety of commercial vehicle applications such as oil field exploration and construction.”

During the product’s 25-year history, Dana indicates that it has secured more than 50 CTIS patents. CTIS provides the ability to deflate a vehicle’s tires on-the-fly, to create a bigger footprint to enhance vehicle mobility in off-highway applications, and has proven to be especially effective in soft, sandy soils.

“Dana CTIS has proven to be robust and reliable over its 25-year run, having undergone numerous enhancements and upgrades,” added Beverly. “For example, all of our electric control units, pneumatic control units and proprietary algorithms have been validated and tuned as a system to meet customer requirements with exceptional performance. And it is commonplace for our engineering and new vehicle development teams to accommodate new vehicle platforms in a fast, efficient and cost-effective manner to meet a wide range of customer-specific requests.”