Deixo aqui mais umas figuras para colorir, desta vez cortesia da Honda.

Uma patente que me parece extremamente útil: em caso de acidente em que o motociclista caia da mota mas a mesma continue de pé, a rolar (algo que como sabemos ocorre com muita frequência), entra o "self driving" em ação!

Lembrei-me logo deste filme:



Assim se percebe a que é que os engenheiros da Honda têm dedicado o seu tempo ultimamente...

Citar:Honda Patents Self-Steering Motorcycle

New design features auto-steering tech to minimize crash damage.



We’ve already seen that Honda can make a bike that can balance on its own and maneuver at walking pace—the Rider Assist and Rider Assist E concepts demonstrated that a few years ago—but the firm has applied for a patent on a bike that uses a self-steering system in the real world to avoid accidents.

In doing so, Honda joins rival firms including Yamaha, which has also been working on auto-steering technology, but the Honda design shown in the firm’s latest patent is aimed at a very specific, and seemingly unlikely, set of circumstances.



The patent says the bike has “a steering actuator configured to steer the front wheel, an actuator control unit configured to control the steering actuator, a collision determination unit configured to determine whether or not a collision has occurred in the host vehicle, and a riding determination unit configured to determine whether or not an occupant is riding the host vehicle.”

It goes on to explain that it’s intended to come into play if there’s been a crash, where the rider has come off the bike but the motorcycle has remained upright and is continuing down the road without anyone at the controls. It’s something that’s seen occasionally in racing, when the rider is thrown off and the bike then regains grip and continues on its own, but it’s hard to imagine many situations on the road when the same might apply.



The documents go on to explain that “in a state in which no occupant is riding a motorcycle immediately after an accident has occurred, there is a need to curb occurrence of secondary damage by controlling the behavior of the self-traveling vehicle.”

To achieve that control, the bike—illustrated as an ST1300 in the patents, although that’s not material to the document and, given that it’s a discontinued model, clearly not the machine that such a system will actually appear in—gets extra parts including a gyro sensor, a camera, a radar, and a lidar unit (LIght Detection And Ranging) that uses lasers to build a picture of its surroundings.

These are connected to a computer that also monitors whether or not there’s been a collision and whether there’s a rider in the seat. In very specific circumstances, when there’s no rider but the bike is still moving, the computer takes control.



Using the camera, radar, and lidar, the setup can then “see” what’s around it, and thanks to the computer’s connection to the throttle, the brakes, and the steering actuator, it can control the bike’s direction and speed to avoid hitting stationary objects or other vehicles and stop it from mounting the sidewalk where it might pose a danger to pedestrians.

If there’s no risk of hitting anything, the system is designed to allow the bike to fall over, keeping the bars straight as it does so, so as to both mitigate damage to the motorcycle—with the bars absorbing the worst of the impact rather than the side bodywork—and to help make sure it comes to a halt as quickly as possible.



It might seem like such a rare set of circumstances that it’s not worth developing this technology, but that’s arguably why the patent is significant. The firm is clearly considering all the possibilities that a self-steering motorcycle offers; this is simply one of them. If all the sensors and a steering actuator are being fitted anyway—perhaps to allow advanced semi-autonomous cruise control or for a future rider-assist system that can counter ill-judged steering inputs in the same way that traction control and ABS can already prevent the worst misuses of the throttle and brakes—then it makes sense to adapt it to work in even the most obscure set of conditions.

Fonte: Cycleworld