Development of a low-cost motorcycle riding simulator for emergency scenarios involving swerving

The development of advanced riding assistance systems requires the analysis of user reactions in emergency situations. Motorcycle riding simulators are an alternative to ‘on-road’ testing so that virtual environment dangerous scenarios can be investigated without risks for the participants. In this paper, we propose a process for validation of a low-cost motorcycle simulator characterized by, first, an elastic resistance on the steering input and, second, a counter-steering strategy. For this, 16 riders tested the simulator in different manoeuvres, including a cornering manouvre in a non-urban environment, a slalom manoeuvre and a lane-change manoeuvre. Objective evaluations and subjective evaluations showed that the simulator was realistic, in particular for investigating lateral avoidance scenarios. The development of suitable motorcycle simulators will significantly advance the field of motorcycle safety research.