Is this man Yamaha’s secret weapon in MotoGP?
Tom O’Kane has been working in MotoGP since the late 1980s, when he joined the paddock’s most go-ahead team – Marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha – to introduce the first serious…
Yamaha’s autonomous Motobot racing bike has attempted to beat Valentino Rossi’s time at Thunderhill Raceway Park, USA
With a targeted top speed of 124mph, the Motobot’s second development milestone is to beat Rossi’s time of 85.740sec around the two-mile circuit. Check out the video below.
The bike didn’t beat it, but Yamaha used the experiment as a learning process for the robot, which uses six actuators to gauge numerous factors including lean angle, altitude and speed. The robot itself rides a stock YZF-R1M, and manipulates the bars as a human would. Yamaha says that the technology has various real-world applications, and will “create new value for existing business and cultivate new business.”
Tom O’Kane has been working in MotoGP since the late 1980s, when he joined the paddock’s most go-ahead team – Marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha – to introduce the first serious…
Next week’s opening pre-season tests at Sepang will be the first time MotoGP uses its spec tyre pressure sensors in preparation for the introduction of new minimum-pressure rules. So how will these new regulations affect the riders, the manufacturers and the spectacle?
There are all the usual reasons we talk about when discussing Ducati’s MotoGP success, but underpinning it all is something that no one really talks about: computer modelling, virtual reality and artificial intelligence…
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