Well, what can I say that hasn’t been said already, here’s your replacement. The next time you think a nice Saturday morning ride would be just the thing, put Motobot on your bike and send him off, instead. Make sure you program him to stop at all of your favorite scenic overlooks with those breath taking views and have him wave as he passes by your Mom’s house. She’ll be glad you were thinking of her. Meanwhile you can do something else, like all of those chores your wife has been asking you to do, but you’ve never had the time for. No excuses, now. What a wonderful bit of technology, so much more efficient than relying on humans. Kinda reminds me of this.
It’s all about safety, they say, rider support systems and things like that. Uh huh.
Yamaha describes it this way:
This is an autonomous motorcycle-riding humanoid robot built around a fusion of Yamaha’s motorcycle and robotics technology. R&D is currently underway with the goal of developing the robot to ride an unmodified motorcycle on a racetrack at more than 200 km/h. The task of controlling the complex motions of a motorcycle at high speeds requires a variety of control systems that must function with a high degree of accuracy. We want to apply the fundamental technology and know-how gained in the process of this challenge to the creation of advanced rider safety and rider-support systems and put them to use in our current businesses, as well as using them to pioneer new lines of business.
It’s on display at the Tokyo Motor Show. You’ve been warned, …
Yeti2bikes says
As long as the word “safety” is in there it’s justifiable. At first I thought this was really cool until I got the feeling like one of these is going to be writing me a ticket someday.
GenWaylaid says
Well, you know, all the BIG money is in building Terminators these days.
Bob says
What I want to know, is how will different robots from different companies “Act”?
Will the H-D robots look old, be loud, a bit on the overweight side, and stagger around with lots of pinstriping? No, I did NOT mention anything about leaking robots, now did I, oops….
Will the retro Triumph robots be a bit vain, stuffy, oh so dapper, all the while being really quite dull? In an ironic sort of way, you know.
Will the Ducati robots be beautiful, but, well, you know, high maintenance?
Will there be robot immigration issues, preventing certain Japanese home market robots from entering the US?
There’s more…
ThatGuy says
Ha I remember that article on here about motorcycle is the last joyride humanity will have. What now?
Oldyeller says
So this is how the get us all to ride transit.
Don’t take the fun away!
Steve says
This will be great for 1 thing, I can ride to the pub and my bot can dink me home…I’m out of use’s anyone else?
Wave says
I agree that having an auto mode to go home from the pub would be awesome.
What about an autonomous scooter for deliveries? It could deliver anything from pizza and fast food to express parcels. Without the need for a rider, you would save a lot of space and weight capacity. The scooter could be completely redesigned with a flat deck to take much larger payloads of 100kg+ for a 50cc scooter or electric equivalent.
Shannon says
It looks really cool but what’s the point of this invention? For individual rider it won’t make a difference, maybe they’ve made it for people who don’t know how to ride and need someone at the wheel.