Look, it's tough out there for a motorcyclist these days. Not only do we have to contend with bad roads, failing infrastructure, and oblivious pedestrians, there's also an increasingly distracted generation of drivers out there ready to run us down in an instant because they had to respond to an important text or something. To help ameliorate this problem, BMW, Honda, and Yamaha came together last year to create protocols and standards for a vehicle-to-vehicle communications system. This year, BMW rolled out a trick R 1200 RS to show us what they've been up to.
BMW Motorrad revealed the R 1200 RS ConnectedRide protoype last week at the Connected Motorcycle Conference (CMC) in Munich. The system features a crossing and left-turn assistant, and other technology to prevent accidents between motorcycles and passenger cars. Other traffic users who are about to disregard the right of way are warned as well as the motorcycle rider himself. A dangerous situation is detected and warning measures are initiated by Vehicle to Vehicle Communication (V2V), based on a cross-manufacturer communication standard and extremely high-precision localisation via D-GNSS (Differential-Global Navigation Satellite System).
The CMC was founded last year by BMW, Honda, and Yamaha to promote Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) for motorcycles with as many cross-manufacturer standards as possible. The only cross-manufacturer consortium for motorcycle safety worldwide, the alliance has been steadily gaining significance in the short time its been around. The CMC takes special account of the requirements specific to motorcycling in view of the highly dynamic development of automotive safety systems, including Vehicle to Vehicle Communication which has not taken motorcycle-specific safety aspects into consideration sufficiently so far.
"Our aim is to promote the comprehensive use of cooperative safety systems for motorcycles at an early stage in order to exploit their potential for increasing safety as well as riding pleasure," said Dr. Karl Viktor Schaller, Head of Development BMW Motorrad. "This is why we are inviting other companies to join in."
The CMC will focus on joint motor show appearances as well as events in 2018 in order to actively illustrate the latest safety system developments for two-wheeled vehicles. This year's conference displayed examples of the technology on the BMW R 1200 RS ConnectedRide prototype, two prototypes based on a Honda CRF 1000 L Africa Twin, and a Yamaha Tracer 900 using a common architecture.
The next important date in the CMC calendar is the ITS World Congress from October 29 to November 2, 2017, in Montréal, Canada. This will be the world's biggest event on intelligent transport systems and services. At the round-table-talk on 1 November, the CMC will conduct an in-depth discussion on the topics of connected networking and V2V communication with experts from the US, Europe and Taiwan.
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