Riderless scooter adds to car intel

A British company has designed a self-riding scooter to expose autonomous vehicles to motorcycles – without putting riders at risk.

The report, in newatlas.com, makes complete sense. The reasoning is that motorcycles are more unpredictable on roads than cars – in factors such as acceleration and maneuverability there’s no argument -- which could confuse the algorithm of an autonomous vehicle that’s used to making decision based on predominantly four-wheelers.

The riderless motorcycle is a BMW C1, which has been fitted with an on-board robot controller, radio control software, GPS and other sensors.

"Future legislation and vehicle safety testing could require ADAS systems and autonomous vehicles to be validated in increasingly complex scenarios and the riderless motorcycle is a useful tool for achieving this," AB's Dr. Richard Simpson, senior systems engineer, was quoted as saying by newatlas.com.

"It could also have applications in motorcycle durability testing by removing the human rider from some of the more arduous tests over rough surfaces, such as pave, where cars already use robot drivers to eliminate driver fatigue."