Until now, you only had an idea about autonomous cars. The autonomous car is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without a driver. It uses various techniques like radar, lidar, GPS, odometry, and computer vision. Like Google self-driving cars, we are about to see the riderless motorcycle. Similarly, Eric Unnervik, a microengineering student from EPFL, has developed a new riderless bike. This riderless motorcycle is an entirely autonomous motorcycle that can beat human riders.
Eric develops a tiny version of this concept for his Master’s project. He did this in the Automatic Control Laboratory under the guidance of Professor Colin Jones. This new riderless motorcycle can travel at a speed of 60 km/hour without falling. This self-driving, GPS-guided motorcycle may be far off, but Unnervik already overcomes this main challenge of two-wheeled vehicles by keeping them upright.
Eric said, “Motorcycles fall as soon as they stop. They must always maintain speed, and the only way to stabilize them is to use the steering angle, which is controlled by a servomotor.”
This riderless motorcycle is fitted with an actual computer: a credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi and sensors that measure the motorcycle’s angle and speed. It also has a Wi-Fi chip to operate the computer from a smartphone. The computer can be used as a remote-control device to tell the motorcycle where to go. The computer makes all the necessary adjustments to ensure the motorcycle remains upright.
Although the motorcycle needs more help from its operator, the Automatic Control Laboratory is already working on versions capable of following a predetermined route. Ultimately, they want the machine to outperform a human rider.
Eric said, “Our goal is that in a race between an autonomous motorcycle and one ridden by a human, our machine wins.”
