Yamaha unveiled the "Motobot" at the Tokyo Motor Show on Wednesday. According to the company, it's an "autonomous motorcycle-riding humanoid robot built around a fusion of Yamaha's motorcycle and robotics technology".
It adds: "R&D is currently underway with the goal of developing the robot to ride an unmodified motorcycle on a racetrack at more than 200 km/h. The task of controlling the complex motions of a motorcycle at high speeds requires a variety of control systems that must function with a high degree of accuracy."
It remains to be seen if Motobot does ultimately surpass Rossi, who currently rides for Movistar Yamaha MotoGP. With one race left in the 2015 season, he's leading the title chase, with a seven point advantage over team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.
The world has been lacking motorcyclists with even less fear of death.
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In sci-fi films, the rise of humanlike artificial intelligence often comes hand in hand with a physical platform, such as an android or robot. While the most advanced AI language models so far seem mostly like disembodied voices echoing from an anonymous data center, they might not remain that way for long. Some companies like Google, Figure, Microsoft, Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and others are working toward giving AI models a body. This is called "embodiment," and AI chipmaker Nvidia wants to accelerate the process.
[...] To that end, Nvidia announced Project GR00T, a general-purpose foundation model for humanoid robots. As a type of AI model itself, Nvidia hopes GR00T (which stands for "Generalist Robot 00 Technology" but sounds a lot like a famous Marvel character) will serve as an AI mind for robots, enabling them to learn skills and solve various tasks on the fly. In a tweet, Nvidia researcher Linxi "Jim" Fan called the project "our moonshot to solve embodied AGI in the physical world."
[...] According to Fan, Project GR00T is a cornerstone of his newly founded GEAR Lab (short for "Generalist Embodied Agent Research"). During his time at Nvidia, Fan has specialized in using simulations of physical worlds to train AI models, and now that approach is extending to robotics. "At GEAR, we are building generally capable agents that learn to act skillfully in many worlds, virtual and real," wrote Fan in a tweet. "Join us on the journey to land on the moon."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @09:59PM
But you're way out of leyeyine.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:20PM
It seems to me some of these efforts have been aimed at basically silly objectives.
They seem to have fairly unlimited budgets for this kind of stuff, and may be counting a a mountain of sales down the road for robotic personal assistants.
Riding a motorcycle might allow robotic shopping trips, or may simply just be a testbed for traffic analysis and collision avoidance at speeds the robot can't achieve under their own power.
Or the motorcycle riding robot may not be aimed at the robot market at all, but rather at self driving cars. It is Toyota after all.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Touché) by aristarchus on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:29PM
It is Toyota after all.
Gee, sure looks to me like it is Yamaha. Or do all Japanese corporations look alike?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:53PM
Something like this, but for a car, could reversibly turn existing, ordinary cars into self-driving ones. However, in some places where self-driving cars are legal, they are only allowed if a human has access to the controls.
As far as I know, Toyota and Yamaha are still separate companies. Years ago, Toyota bought a 5% interest in Yamaha.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB952329392965539413 [wsj.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Francis on Monday November 02 2015, @01:08AM
As a motorcyclist, there's absolutely no way in hell that I'd trust one of these things to handle the bike for me while I'm on it. I would, however, trust the robot to bring my motorcycle for me and drop it off at home.
Motorcycles are a lot more complicated to drive and if you get it a little bit wrong, you can wind up with the bike crashing or falling over. I don't doubt that it's a solvable problem, but I'd expect it to happen decades after AI cars are solved. You have a ton of special cases that have to be coded for and you can't settle for just radar readings and cameras monitoring the lane. You have to have AI that's smart enough to understand the changes in the road surface.
And unlike a car, you can't just slam on the brakes and hope things go well. You have virtually no protection if you're rear ended, if the handlebars aren't squared you can low-side and if the tires lose traction, you can have issues maintaining the bikes upright position.
But, it will be awesome when they actually get it figured out. It would be kind of nice to have the AI help me manage my traction and warn me of cars likely to veer into my lane. Although, I doubt it will be a problem after most cars are AI cars.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @03:13AM
AI help me manage my traction
Already available, but so everyday that it's no longer called AI. Electronic traction control is available on some higher power bikes. Some like Aprilia's traction control the best. ( http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/2012/08/article/2012-superbike-traction-control-comparison/ [motorcycle-usa.com] ). Slipper clutches are a very simple analog computer to reduce rear wheel spin when downshifting. ABS brakes are available as an option on many, many, bikes.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday November 02 2015, @07:32AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday November 02 2015, @04:21PM
Yes, but really motorcycles aren't that dangerous.
They are more dangerous than cars, but most fatalities are the result of the motorcyclist driving too aggressively and slamming into something. The bulk of the rest are the result of being run over by a car. Just laying the bike down, even at great speed is unlikely to be fatal, as long as you're wearing full protective gear and don't run into anything before you've come to a rest. Most of the time you'll break and arm or a leg, but otherwise be fine. It's those times when you get crushed or smashed that are likely to result in death.
Still, it would be kind of nice to have adaptive cruise control for straightaways so that I could take my hand off the throttle for a short bit to stretch my hand out.
(Score: 2, Funny) by snufu on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:39PM
robot donor parts card.
(Score: 2, Funny) by throwaway28 on Sunday November 01 2015, @11:58PM
Most recent similar work I've seen, was the ghostrider entry to the first darpa race (example: http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/TechPapers/BlueTeam.pdf [darpa.mil] ), which tended to crash a lot, and never entered the main race.
Calling this a humanoid robot, seems a bit of a stretch. Notice how the knees and elbows don't bend.
As an autonomous motorcycle, the aesthetics are disappointing. Too shiny. Not enough exposed cables, duct tape, and hastily welded angle iron. A prototype should look like a prototype; not like a piece of junk from the art department.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday November 02 2015, @01:41AM
Motor-terminators like in T. salvation...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday November 02 2015, @05:07PM
Finally someone pointing out the obvious.
There is a lot of money available for deployment of autonomous motorcycles, because a gas tank gives your armed land drone hours of autonomy, access to tight and rugged areas, while carrying a pretty decent payload. Current robots in that category are either bulky or terribly slow.
The tank/armored carried of the future has a few light drones hovering around for vision, and a few motorcycle-sized land drones for taking out opponents in tight urban settings.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @02:15AM
Hopefully those Asians are better at programming a vehicle to drive than driving it themselves.