Bosch tests gas thrusters to make motorbikes safer

Let’s face it, motorbikes aren’t the safest form of transportation. Sure, it’s cool seeing Tom Cruise speed off in Mission: Impossible 2, but it’s not easy to be that slick. Lean your bike over on a patch of unstable, sandy ground and it’s likely your wheels will slide out, bringing you crashing to the ground.  

Bosch is testing anti-slide technology that could stop motorbikes from toppling over during tight leans to the side, borrowing a technique used by astronauts to navigate in space.

It’s actually pretty simple technology. When your motorbike begins to slide and fall, Bosch will use pressurised gas thrusters to repulse you straight back up. The idea is that this counteracts the sliding wheel, enabling a rider to re-stabilise the bike so they don’t have a low crash.

The gas is exhausted out of the motorbike’s thrusters, providing a motive force in much the same way a spaceship will use its thrusters to push its body in the opposite direction. In this case, it’s the sliding wheel that the thruster is designed to counteract.

The hitch? It seems that if you have one fall, and Bosch’s gas repulsion is activated, you’ll have to shell out for the tech to be fitted again. It can’t be reused, much like an airbag. That said, it’s still only in its test phase, so Bosch might find a way of building in reusable tech by the time it’s actually ready for the real world.

Bosch announced last month that it has developed technology that can cut nitrogen oxide emissions for diesel cars to just a fraction of the 2020 limits. The company claimed that the breakthrough was due to the refinement of existing diesel technologies as well as new temperature and air management systems.

It’s a tricky time for the company, mainly down to the UK’s increased regulations on diesel cars made in a bid to tackle air pollution. Whether Bosch’s tech will change the fate of diesel cars, we’ll just have to see, but Bosch’s innovate motorbike tech is certainly fun to watch in action, and could do a lot to improve bike safety.

Image credit: Bosch