The motorcycle-riding Motobot robot that Yamaha revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show last year is to reach speeds of over 200km/h on a closed circuit in 2017 as it enters its second development phase.
The humanoid contraption is being developed to be able to ride any motorcycle with no modifications needed, and has a lofty end goal of beating lap times set by Valentino Rossi around a race track. At the Las Vegas CES event this week the firm announced that it is teaming up with robotics specialists at Californian firm SRI International to further advance the project, and revealed the 2017 deadline for Motobot’s first 200km/h runs.
Far from being simply a remote control device, Motobot is intended to be fully autonomous. Not only will it be able to control the bike, but the eventual intention is that it will be sensitive enough to feedback from the bike to be able to push it to the limit, altering its lines and techniques to make the most of each bike and track and improving its lap times as a result. While there mightn’t be immediate practical potential for the robot, the level of understanding of motorcycle behaviour needed to achieve anything approaching its eventual Rossi-beating goal promises to have a massive effect on future traction control and stability control systems.
