BMW creates self-driving motorcycle to ensure rider safety

Moving away from self-driving cars and trucks, automaker BMW is now introducing self-driving motorcycles in order to ensure safety of riders.

Automobile manufacturer BMW’s Motorrad recently released a video of its new self-driving motorbike in action. The driverless bike itself starts the engine and takes off for a ride.

The bike accelerates, brakes and makes all the turns itself. The aim of this Artificial Intelligence integration in the motorcycle is to keep bikers safer on roads.

Video Courtesy: BMW Motorrad

BMW Motorrad engineer Stefan Hans said that the company did not mean to manufacture an autonomous motorcycle. He added that they instead wanted to discover more ways to advance motorcycle safety for riders just the same way lane-keeping and autonomous braking systems helps keeping car drivers safe, reported Futurism.

It took over two years to develop the autonomous motorcycle. When the biker isn’t paying enough attention to the road, the autonomous features would automatically pick up the slack. However, the motorcycle was not created for consumers, but rather to learn more about how it can implement new safety features, wrote Engadget.

“The prototype helps us to expand our knowledge about the vehicle's dynamics so that we can classify the rider's behavior and determine if a future situation will become dangerous or not. If so, we can inform, warn or intervene directly. The bike will be used to develop new safety systems aimed at supporting inattentive drivers.” said Hans.