BMW Motorrad put many people in awe at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2019 by demonstrating its self-riding R 1200 GS. Although this isn’t the first time BMW has used autonomous technology for testing as we’ve seen a glimpse of it in the C1 scooter, a motorcycle riding around all by itself isn’t a common sight.
The riderless BMW is capable to start, accelerate, handle corners, turn, brake, and even drop its side stand down before coming to a stop! Isn’t that brilliant? How all this is achieved remains a mystery as of now but there must be the utilization of technologies like radars, cameras, gyroscopes, etc. It was a great sight watching a heavy BMW bike roaming around in a closed circuit all by itself.
BMW says that this isn’t the future. It is not going to make fully automated motorcycles. BMW will use this riderless technology to test out other safety features and rider assist technologies like adaptive cruise control, brake assist, ABS, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and traction control. This self-riding motorcycle will no longer require putting an actual rider at risk while performing tests.
Technology is really moving forward in leaps and bounds. It was not that long ago when Honda revealed its self-balancing motorcycle and later Yamaha joined with its MOTORoid concept with AI.
We’ve already got self-driving cars, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a proper autonomous motorcycle in the future. What are your views about this changing technology?
