Artificially Intelligent Suspension?
If you thought that suspension wouldn’t be impacted by articficial intelligence, then you were wrong. Honda just patented new technology that makes its suspension smart. Basically the system uses AI to decide what damping is correct based on the terrain.
The system utilizes both passive and active suspension components to decide what damping is correct. It even slightly anticipates what will be the best, according to MoreBikes. The system uses an accellerometer to determine what the damping should be. This system reevaluates its data thousands of times every single second.
The system measures front-wheel oscillations and how that pertains to two different presets. By doing this, the system can tell whether it’s riding off-road or on the pavement. According to MoreBikes, the system was patented for the Honda CRF450L, but there’s no reason to assume it wouldn’t make it to other motorcycles in the Honda lineup.
This is interesting technology and something that I would personally like to know more about before I was willing to accept it. The AI system seems to make sense in principle, but I wonder how it translates once you’re actually riding the motorcycle. it will be interesting to see what Honda does with this tech.
I’ve ridden BMW R1200RT and RS’s with their dynamic suspension. It was rough and worse than the standard suspension on my BMW F800GT.
It may be technically superior to a plebian suspension like mine, but I’m not sure how Honda’s will be much different than BMW’s in the real world.
The BMW and similar systems use ‘preset’ values within rider set up selections. Given the limited process window in that application, it can be assumed there would be problems at either end of whatever sweet spot engineering anticipated for those settings. With the application of AI, the game changes. Recent advances in AI are very impressive and if the chipset in the control computer and related software are up to the challenge, we’re in for some interesting times not only in the realm of suspension but other system controls as well. Personally, I’ve been happy with the performance of my 04 RT plain Jane suspension and like the simplicity and cost effectiveness.