Car and airplane simulators aren’t something new, coming in different configurations depending on how much you are willing to spend. You can even get a very high-tech hydraulic actioned one that mimics the movements of the real machine. However, building one for motorcycles was a bit more complicated.
Professional-grade simulators maker Cruden has been developing such tech since 2005 and now has finally managed to put out a very realistic motorcycle sim machine.
The hard part with such a project was the fact that, unlike in cars, boats or airplanes, the rider’s body position affects the handling quite a lot, thus needing very complex algorithms and sensors for the machine to adapt subtle changes in weight distribution.
The motorcycle steering process is made even more difficult to mimic by the essential riding technique of counter-steering. Above a certain speed, in the instant before leaning into a corner, a rider initiates a turn by pushing on the inside handlebar: pushing left to go left or pushing right to go right. This might seem counter-intuitive, but most riders counter-steer instinctively and are barely aware of their handlebar input.
Cruden’s much more sophisticated system uses depth-map sensors to continuously detect exactly how the rider is positioned on the bike and uses this information to alter vehicle behavior accordingly. To complement this, a very stiff steering actuator allows for realistic counter-steering capabilities.
Riding a motorcycle requires a very large field of view, both horizontally and vertically. This is because the rider has a much more unobstructed view on a motorcycle in comparison to a car, as well as because there is a tendency to look around more on a motorcycle.
To cater for the large demand in field of view, one would have to design a very big projection system, which would have to be placed relatively close to the rider. This approach has various practical and cost disadvantages.
The company has therefore equipped its motorcycle simulator, the B306-HMD, with a Head Mounted Display (HMD) instead to offer a virtually unlimited field of view. The rider is visually completely isolated from the real world but does feel the real motorcycle where he/she sees the virtual motorcycle, due to the highly accurate graphics and perfect integration of the HMD into Cruden’s Panthera simulation software. This integration is such that the HMD responds to the user’s head movements, not to the movements of the motion platform.
This bike simulator seems to be perfect, but there will always be a thing the company won’t be able to replicate - the centrifugal force that keeps you stuck to the bike when you are leaning. Which means you’ll have to muscle the bike more to stay on it when cornering.
But that’s not a big deal comparing to what this ultimate biker toy can do. The simulator is available as of now, but the company hasn’t specified a retail price for it, which probably depends on customer’s choice regarding bike mock-up and other accessories.
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