Harley-Davidson working on emergency autonomous braking system

- Harley-Davidson developing emergency autonomous braking system

- Will use sensors to determine of the rider is ready for emergency braking

Harley-Davidson is working on new rider technologies that will make its way to some of its future bikes. The emergency autonomous braking system is one of them. 

The company has filed a patent for this technology in US. This system will have a series of sensors on the motorcycle that will detect if the rider is prepared for an emergency braking. There’s a sensor in the grips to determine if they are being held. There are sensors on the seat to determine if the rider is on the saddle. There’s also cognition sensors mounted on the instrument cluster to track the rider’s eye movements. Based on these sensors, the system will determine if the rider is prepared to react before the autonomous brakes are activated. 

The system detects that the rider is not ready, the system turns on various warning indicators audio cues or even a vibration from haptic indicators in the handlebars or seat. The system may also apply marginal braking pulse, so that the rider will understand the shift in weight. If the rider still does not respond, the system will wait a predetermined interval (the patent suggests between 200 ms to 500 ms) before stepping in and slowing down the motorcycle. If the system determines the rider is alert enough, it will start applying emergency braking. If the rider has already applied the brakes, the system will assist by applying additional braking pressure. 

There are a few other bike makers developing this safety system, but it will take some time before this technology make its way to production motorcycles.