Yamaha made a short video about what it calls “Motobot,” basically a hunchback humanoid bot designed specifically to ride a motorbike. Motobot talks to Valentino Rossi (riding for Yamaha in Moto GP) and announces that the plan to surpass his skills.
In the video, Motobot rides a custom R1M, specially modified to be operated by the robot. The end goal is to not have to alter the bike in any way, though.
No technical specifications of any kind were spared, though, and all we can do is try to guess what the robot voice is referring to. We don’t think Motobot is fully autonomous, but the video makes it sound like it’s one of those learning bots that continuously improves.
If you’re wondering why Yamaha is investing in this, well, they say they want to do more towards rider safety, an area where a bot like this would certainly come in handy. Once they have a final version of it, they could also sell it to other companies thus widening their business spectrum too.