Honda Self Balancing Motorcycle also debuts riderless technology with it, made jaws drop and got people go in shock
Honda is known for making some serious concepts which never make it to reality. Just for the sake of competition and what the massive R&D team with the most amount of that they have on disposal can showcase, comes in the form of concept. In Honda’s vision of the future, Riding Assist disengages the handlebars from the forks below 3 mph and diverts control of the front wheel to a computer. The computer senses lean, and then synchronized electric motors controlling both the fork and handlebar provide minute steering inputs.
The moving of the front wheel side-to-side thousands of times per second takes place. The bike stands or slowly rolls perfectly upright till the time when, in the case of more extreme tips, where the wheel noticeably swings. When the motorcycle reaches above 5 km/hrs, two anchors engage and lock the forks in place, returning the motorcycle to conventional steering.
Virtually, what we can see in the video above is Riding Assist’s extension of the fork angle, lengthening the bike’s wheelbase and lowering its center of gravity. How did all come together? The tech for Riding Assist was made and implemented at Honda’s Silicon Valley R&D center and directly derived from the balancing systems in its Asimo robot and UNI-CUB electric mobility scooter. One of the many concepts of the past helping this new concept.
Something we discussed earlier. Riding Assist Motorcycle also sports an electric motor in the front wheel hub that allows it to silently propel itself. Honda demonstrated Riding Assist by having the concept bike slowly wheel itself onstage, following a UNI-CUB. Honda won’t make this climb the production line and sell it to all of us as this is a pure concept with largely the technology being pointless in today’s time. However, maybe a decade or two later this could be the solution to something that we have not encountered yet.
