Yamaha’s MOTOROiD Concept Wins Top Red Dot Award Design Honor

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Yamaha Motor Company recently won the Luminary Award as part of the 2018 Red Dot Design Awards with its MOTOROiD concept bike. Among other things, the MOTOROiD uses artificial intelligence and autonomous technology to recognize and move toward its owner. (Photo courtesy of Yamaha.)

The Red Dot Design Awards from Germany’s Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen are among the world’s top awards recognizing design. Until this year, no Japanese company had won the event’s top honor, the Luminary Award. Yamaha changed that in late September with its MOTOROiD concept motorcycle. Integrating “high-balance control” abilities via artificial intelligence and autonomous technology, the bike aims to “demonstrate personal mobility in which the rider resonates harmoniously with the machine,” Yamaha says.

A True Partner

The MOTOROiD’s technological foundation, which includes the Yamaha-exclusive AMCES (Active Mass Center Control System), helps the bike “sense its own state,” “adjust its center of gravity accordingly,” and stand and remain upright without assistance. Moreover, the bike can recognize and move toward its owner, and use an HMI (human-machine interface) to react to the rider’s actions. Such abilities let the MOTOROiD “behave like a true partner of its owner,” says Yamaha.

Yamaha’s aim in creating the MOTOROiD was to develop a new-generation Yamaha-styled motorcycle that when a rider “settles into the racer-like riding position and grabs the handlebars, it provides a sporty and exciting riding experience regardless of the person’s individual skills or athleticism.” The bike, however, doesn’t sport “a flashy look,” Yamaha notes. Instead, its creators wanted the bike to show their “repeated creative clashes.” The result is a “machine proudly showing it true colors and all the scars of trial and error.”

Best Of The Best

The 2018 Red Dot Design competition attracted 5,640 entrants from 55 countries in Product Design, Communication Design, and Design Concept categories. The Luminary Award winner was selected from three Red Dot “Best of the Best” finalists. The MOTOROiD also recently won the Gold Award at the IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) competition.

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Source: Yamaha