Objective and subjective evaluation of an advanced motorcycle riding simulator

Purposes This paper outlines the characteristics of a top-of-the range motorcycle simulator designed and built at the University of Padua over a period of several years last years; it consists of a motorcycle mock-up with functional throttle, brakes, clutch and gearlever mounted on a five ‘degrees of freedom’ platform, a real-time multibody model of the motorcycle and an audio and visual systems. The applications of the simulator are to test devices such as ABS, traction control and other ARAS in a controlled, safe environment, to study riders’ behaviour and to train them. The aim is to find a procedure to validate the behaviour of a Motorcycle Riding Simulator with a real PTWs. Methods An innovative procedure for the objective and subjective validation of motorcycle simulators has been developed and implemented, in order to be able to apply the results obtained on the simulator to the real world. Results The evaluation of objective and subjective data collected shows that the proposed simulator is adequate for handling tests. The proposed method is suitable to be extended to vehicle simulator in general. Conclusions The development work done by University of Padova provides an innovative and reliable tool for the validation of a motorcycle riding simulator.