Tag Archives: autonomous vehicle

Hi-tech motorcycles will save industry

Safer hi-tech motorcycles, such as the Damon X above, will attract the future generation of motorcyclists scared of the dangers of riding and possibly save the industry from extinction, a motorcycle start-up says.

Damon Motorcycles CEO and founder Jay Giraud has produced a white paper about the future of the motorcycling industry in which he says advanced safety systems may save motorcycling.

He predicts a future “where the idea of rider accidents being inevitable and unavoidable will be a thing of the past, along with external valve gear and pulley transmissions”.

Damon recently raised $US2.5m in seed funding and has partnered with Canadian police to improve rider safety.

Their Damon X will use 360-degree sensors and cameras to detect potential hazards in front and behind and send alerts via 5G to the rider.

autonomous automated Damon X safe motorcycle industry 5GAlerts will consist of hazard lights on the mirrors as well as “haptic” pads in the seat and handlebars that vibrate. There are also temperature and moisture sensors to detect changing road conditions. 

“Such unheard of levels of safety brings with it a potential for cataclysmic change within the entire motorcycling community, from manufacturer to commuter,” Jay says.

Damon X safe motorcycle industry

Industry outdated

Jay says the motorcycle industry has outdated marketing messages.

“The manufacturers currently failing to attract the next generation of riders with outdated promises of ‘thrills and adventure’ will have something much more relevant to offer.

“It’s the promise of an immeasurably safer riding environment created by the type of advanced technology so wholeheartedly embraced by today’s millennial customer.”

Jay points out that millennials make up 25% of the world’s population with a combined purchasing power of $US13 trillion, increasing to $US22t in the next five years.

“This age group is traditionally one that fully embraces the two-wheeled culture and one which the motorcycle industry fully expected to take the baton from the rapidly diminishing baby boomers,” he says.

However, as companies such as Harley-Davidson have recognised, their customers are ageing and parking up their bikes.

Meanwhile, millennials are not attracted to motorcycles for a variety of reasons including high student loans and aversion to risk-taking.

Diverse Harly-Davidson riders women youth
Harley is targeting younger riders

Complete automation unlikely

Jay says that while cars and other vehicles are heading toward being fully autonomous, “it is highly unlikely that motorcycling will ever evolve towards complete automation”.

“There is a purity to motorcycling that no rider would voluntarily relinquish in favour of convenience or simplicity,” he says.

However, he says the evolution of accident avoidance for motorcycles is inevitable, making motorcycles safer and more attractive to millennials.autonomous automated Damon X safe motorcycle industryautonomous automated Damon X safe motorcycle industry

Jay says advances in artificial intelligence, radar systems, hi-res digital, and environmental sensors have made them smaller, more reliable and cheaper, making them more suitable for use on motorcycles.

“As the world shifts towards autonomous driving, the need for safer, more intelligently enabled motorcycles will grow at the same pace,” he says.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com

Tesla Autopilot detects lane filtering riders

Electric car company Tesla is further developing its Autopilot software that detects lane-filtering riders as shown in this driver’s YouTube video.

One of the biggest issues about the rapid move toward autonomous vehicles is how they will detect small and vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians.

In one incident in San Francisco last year a lane filtering rider was hit by a Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle being driven in autonomous mode.

And police had the hide to blame the rider!

The Australian Motorcycle Council and other motorcycle representative groups around the world have called on authorities to slow down the testing and introduction of autonomous vehicles.

A motorcycle industry group in the USA called Give a Shift went so far as to say that “the single biggest threat to motorcycling overall (particularly in urban and higher density environments) will be the incompatibility between autonomous vehicles and existing motorcycles”.

However, motorcycle, car and tech companies such as Bosch are continuing to work together to develop systems that better identify and communicate with each other.

So while we still have grave concerns, it appears technology is starting to find solutions that just might make us safer.

In fact, BMW Motorrad spokesman Karl Viktor Schaller declares they will make riding safer because autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be virtually crashproof.

Tesla Autopolit

Tesla has now launched its Version 9 software update to Autopilot 2.0+ hardware that has a more advanced “neural net” to detect smaller and faster-moving objects around the vehicle.

That includes lane-filtering motorcycles.

In the above video by Tesla Model 3 owner Scott Kubo, there are several examples of lane-splitting riders in LA travelling at much higher speeds than the 30km/h lane filtering maximum in Australia.

The system struggles at times to detect them both day and night.

Tesla detects lane filtering riders
Tesla detects lane filtering rider in video, but not on the sidescreen graphic.

In some cases it mistakes a bike for a car and in others the bike is in the next lane and passing right through cars!

Scott says drivers also use their ears to detect motorcycles and suggests an audio sensor to help the camera and radar sensors.

However, the bikes — including a couple of loud Harleys — are only audible for the last couple of seconds as they are coming from behind.

With the crackdown on exhaust noise and the coming wave of quiet electric motorcycles, an audio sensor would probably be pointless.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com