Riding a motorcycle safely demands a certain skill, which multiplies under the demands of the professional environment. Today, computers are barely finding their way onto the streets to drive cars, but can they race a motorcycle? The people at Yamaha want to answer that question with the robot Motobot, and its introductory video talks about the “Doctor”, something many interpreted as a challenge to Valentino Rossi…
A Fiery MotoGP Season
The world of MotoGP is on fire. The rivalry between Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez, which many already place at the level of “Prost-Senna”, reached one of its most critical points during the Malaysian Grand Prix last Sunday, when a touch between the two riders and the apparent kick of Rossi (which went viral in record time) left Márquez out of the race, sending Rossi to the back of the grid for the last race of the year in Valencia. Either way, the MotoGP championship will end in the hands of a Yamaha rider (technically Movistar Yamaha MotoGP), but it's not just their motorcycles that bring us together here today. Yamaha has been working on a very particular robot, and its goal seems to be to race motorcycles alongside the great champions.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/4asCK8yamb0Meet Motobot
Unfortunately, Yamaha did not provide any additional technical details about Motobot, beyond that it is the first version and still needs training wheels for logical reasons (one must protect the electronics, after all). However, those wheels never touch the ground: the robot manages to maintain balance and reaches a not-to-be-sneezed-at 100 kilometers per hour on the motorcycle. As if that weren't enough, the dialogue (obviously edited) leaves no room for error: “I am improving my skills every day”. There's also the detail in the video's title, “To the Doctor”. For those who don't follow MotoGP, “Doctor” is the nickname by which Valentino Rossi is known.
Some comments indicate that the robot has no chance against a human rider, because it lacks the ability to manage its weight and change its torso position… but the Motobot video says “version 1”. If the people at Yamaha manage to replicate all the physical parameters the robot requires, once it solves all the variables and determines the optimal trajectory on a circuit, well... I'll just say I'd love to see that race.
