The obvious steps toward electrification aren't the only advances that will come to motorcycles. While everything seemed invented, Yamaha came up with an innovation which aims to improve user safety and prevent falls at low speed.
At first it may seem like something extremely simple, but the AMSAS (Advanced Motorcycle Stability Assist System) project hides a truly innovative system, which Yamaha intends to install on all its motorcycles once development is completed.
It is a common accident for the rider to destabilize the motorcycle at very low speeds, because the machine does not yet have enough inertia to maintain its balance. A small slip, a poorly made counterweight or any other small slip can land you on the ground.
Yamaha's AMSAS arrives precisely to prevent this. The objective of this system patented by Yamaha is to prevent the motorcycle from falling at speeds below 5 km/h and to keep it moving at all times, alone, without falling.
The system is already at an advanced stage of development, to the point that Yamaha has made it public through an explanatory video. Although it seems to have some shortcomings that they want to resolve in the long term, such as size or even price, the AMSAS is located on the front wheel of the motorcycle, which at first glance looks like a small motor connected to the IMU.
Taking advantage of information from the Yamaha R3's six-axis IMU that the engineers use to develop the project – and to which they also adapted an electric motor – it takes all the information and adapts the drive force to maintain stability , so that pilot intervention is completely zero. It can even operate and keep the motorcycle stable without anyone on it. This system allows you to move left, right, forward, backward and even turn around.
What Yamaha doesn't want is to intervene in the handling of the bike because that's the rider's business. This explains the reason why it does not intervene at speeds above 5 km/h, because they want human intervention to be complete and at no point become autonomous, as happens in some vehicles. In this sense, they follow the “Jinki-Kanno” philosophy, a philosophical concept of the brand that seeks a motorcycle-human sensory combination.
The problem that arises for the product, also adaptable to internal combustion motorcycles, is its size and price. Their goal is for it to be something totally globalized, like ABS already is, but they have to reduce costs because it currently costs around €345, and it is too bulky to attach to a motorcycle wheel driving at a more conventional speed.
