Wireless braking for bicycles

My wireless broadband at home often doesn’t take the issue of connectivity very seriously.

So when I read that a German university has developed a wireless braking system for a bicycle that has a 99.999999999997 per cent reliability rate, there are certainly some trust issues at work.

But that’s exactly what computer scientists, using complex algorithms, at Germany's Saarland University are claiming, having developed a prototype that does away with cables and levers.

Instead, there’s a rubber handle that only needs to be squeezed for the system to activate, and the harder you grip, the more braking pressure is applied.

It takes roughly 250 milliseconds for the bike to brake once a rider squeezes the rubber grip and the wireless nodes start talking to each other. But if the rubber handle slips off the bars, you’re knackered…

According to Professor Holger Hermanns, the chair of Dependable Systems and Software at Saarland, the system is not perfect but “acceptable”.

“Wireless networks are never a fail-safe method. That’s a fact that’s based on a technological background. Nonetheless, the trend is to set up wireless systems that, like a simple bicycle brake, have to function all the time,” he said.

Professor Hermanns’s goal is to commercialise the wireless system. How would a motorcycle handle such technology?