Advanced Motorcycle Stabilisation Assist System
Last year, Yamaha Motor announced its Jin-Ki Kanno x Jin-Ki Anzen Safety Vision, which aims to create a world free of accidents together with their customers.
Yamaha’s research suggests that accidents involving motorcycles have been attributed primarily to recognition errors (10%), decision errors (17%), and operation errors (5%) on the part of the rider.
Data also indicates that approximately 70% of motorcycle accidents occur within two seconds of the trigger leading to the accident.
Based on these analyses of accident causes, Yamaha Motor’s development of rider aids is underway according to four vectors: assisted danger prediction, damage prevention and assisted defensive riding, assisted evasive riding maneuvers, and damage mitigation.
Unveiled last year, AMSAS stabilises a vehicle’s attitude at low speeds by controlling drive forces and steering forces. The prototype system under development uses a production YZF-R25 for its platform and is equipped with a six-axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) along with drive and steering actuators. If the below is anything to go by, the prototype system doesn’t look to practical for real world use..
AMSAS is a rider aid that focuses on the instability a motorcycle experiences when starting off or when riding at low speeds, and works to enhance the stability of the vehicle during these moments. “When starting or stopping, the drive actuator fitted to the front wheel aids with stability, and from there up to about 5 km/h, the steering actuator attached to the handlebars takes over,” explains Project Leader Akitoshi Suzuki. Through the coordination of the two, the mid-development AMSAS prototype vehicle can move at walking speeds without falling over, regardless of the skill level of the rider aboard.
A Technology Platform Adaptable to Various Mobility Applications
Yamaha Motor once made headlines when it unveiled the MOTOBOT—an autonomous motorcycle-riding humanoid robot—and MOTOROiD, a proof-of-concept experimental motorcycle equipped with AI and self-balancing technology. “The R&D for AMSAS began with the idea of bringing the technologies and know-how acquired through developing these two models to customers around the world,” says Suzuki.
Jun Sakamoto, who handles safety strategy at Yamaha, explains the value AMSAS aims to offer: “It’s to create conditions where the rider can focus more on operating their bike, so that everyone can enjoy that sense of being one with your machine. By providing an assist when the bike is more unstable and requires skill to operate, we want to deliver fun rooted in peace of mind to a wide range of riders.”
“With the base technologies in place now, we’re halfway to our goal of bringing AMSAS’ value to customers,” asserts Suzuki. He and the team have high aspirations for the technology: “From here on, we’ll be working to downscale the sizes of the various components and so on, as we want to develop it into a platform not just for motorcycles, but one also adaptable to a wide range of other personal mobility applications, like bicycles.”
I think we will just stick to the conventional way of balancing and not falling over for now, thanks….
