Thought self-driving cars were
amazing? Well, even they can’t hold a candle to what BMW Motorrad has done. The motorcycle specialists have
just unveiled a bespoke R1200GS that can balance and ride itself without the need
for a human rider.
The project has been in the works for more than two
years but interestingly, was never created as a potential stepping-stone to a
fully-autonomous motorcycle. Instead, BMW Motorrad says it designed the
motorcycle in a bid to improve the safety of its future offerings.
The German manufacturer envisions a future
motorcycle that will be able to classify a rider’s behavior on a bike and
determine a dangerous situation before the rider even knows it. The motorcycle
could then inform, warn or even intervene directly to avoid an accident.
Features like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist could conceivably
reach road-going motorcycles thanks to autonomous prototypes like this.
BMW isn’t the only motorcycle maker to build an
autonomous prototype in recent times. Over the past couple of years, Yamaha has
also been developing a bike that rides itself but unlike BMW, its ‘Motobot’
wasn’t focused solely on improving safety of future models. Instead, Yamaha set
out to create a self-riding bike that could lap a circuit faster than
motorcycling legend Valentino Rossi.
