A virtual motorcycle driver to simulate real manoeuvres from experimental data

The control of single-track vehicles represents a challenging task. The stability is characterized by vibration modes which change with the vehicle speed and acceleration and may possibly become unstable under certain motion conditions. This paper presents a virtual rider who accounts for these effects by updating the control action at each instant, based on the information of the approaching road section and the current vehicle state. This approach mimics the behaviour of a real rider, who looks ahead, learning a portion of the track and continuously using this information to decide when and how to steer and accelerate or decelerate. As an example of application, the virtual rider is employed to simulate a real manoeuvre using the experimental signals (namely the speed and the roll angle) of the real vehicle as the target motion for the virtual vehicle. A comparison between the virtual rider inputs and the real rider inputs is included. The essential properties that make the behaviour of the virtual rider consistent with that of the real human rider are addressed.