This initial version travels slowly and needs training wheels to avoid tipping over in a turn, so it's not about to compete on the MotoGP circuit just yet. However, Yamaha hopes to get Motobot to travel at more than 120mph on a race track.
Motobot has six actuators for steering, throttle, front brake, rear brake, clutch and gearshift pedal. Reacting to data from the bike's internal sensors, including speed, engine RPM and attitude, it steers the motorcycle and reacts to conditions on the track.
Yamaha said that, in the future, it'll be incorporating additional sensors including high-precision GPS, as well as adding machine learning capabilities to allow Motobot to "make its own decisions regarding the best lines to take around a racetrack and the limits of the motorcycle’s performance, so that it can improve its lap times with successive laps of the track."
Ultimately, Yamaha sees its robotic rider as a testbed for rider safety and support systems, both of which have to work well under punishing conditions. It could also lead to technology that is useful outside of the motorbike world.
The technologies developed in the process will be used in future product development and testing. That includes both the creation of safer and better performing motorbikes and the future development of other autonomous robots.
