MotoGP robot promises to challenge Rossi

Could a rider-less motorcycle robot compete with the speed demons of MotoGP?

That's the vision of Japanese computer graphics designer Yutaka Igarashi who has conceived a new robotically controlled motorcycle design aimed at beating the lap time of a MotoGP bike around a circuit.

Powered by an electric motor, the concept is controlled by swinging a boom (which replaces the rider) through hydraulic actuators. The design is still at concept stage, so no power output or battery details have been specified.

With robots now used for everything from automobile manufacture to robotically assisted heart surgery, a robot motorcycle could no doubt be very accurate at high speed. It may even be possible to replicate a fast lap using telemetry recorded from a human rider but I do have my doubts about whether the talents of a MotoGP riders can be successfully be digitized into G code to allow a Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) machine to outperform them.

But it's a radical and cool idea, and would certainly be able to draw curtains without needing stitches.