That's a modified motorcycle. The one in the article is a normal motorcycle with a robot sitting on it.

Putting the actuators on the motorcycle is the easy part. From a control perspective, it doesn't much matter whether the actuators are packaged into a humanoid form or not.

You have much more precise control over things like throttle position if you're controlling a fly-by-wire throttle electronically compared to actuating a physical throttle mechanically.

In principle I agree with you, but I think the inaccuracies will stack up quite quickly.

Getting a motorcycle to change direction is more than just actuating a control, body position, centre of gravity and using the legs to push down on the pegs are all things racers do.

This is true! Nice username, btw!

I think some of this comes down to how closely you have to mimic a human rider. Does the robot have to weigh as much as a plausible GP rider? If not, then the robot plainly has a mass advantage. Would that be counteracted by the robot's inability to shift mass and drag knee/elbow like a Rossi or Marquez can? I actually don't know.

I knew my username would be exposed at some point :)

The robot will absolutely have to weigh as much as a Marquez - just look at the disadvantage that a super-light rider like Pedrosa has on some tracks - he just can't get enough heat into the tyres to generate enough grip.

Humans adapt quickly to changes in the bikes and variations in tyres and surfaces, the robot however, could in theory be directly linked up to the electronic systems to get direct rather than physical feedback (I'd call that cheating)...

Do any of the two contain (hidden) gyroscopes? Because I feel that would be cheating.

Why would that be cheating? Your body uses a pretty clever system in the inner ear with little chalk particles that touch hairs to tell you which way your body is oriented, it can also detect acceleration in different directions. The effect is much like a gyroscope, except that it does not use a wheel.

There are two kinds of gyros. Small ones for sensing and large ones for actuation. I think it's obvious the poster meant the latter. Anyway, for sensing, you nowadays use laser gyros and mems accelerometers instead of mechanical gyros for sensing.

> I think it's obvious the poster meant the latter.

It wasn't obvious to me, but now that you mention it, yes, that would be a neat little trick to pull.

They both do, and neither make any pretense around hiding them. In fact, the stock R1M has gyros without a rider of any sort, as part of its traction control system.