FIM rule change for 2011

Keshav said:

Luuuucy! Ju better 'splain how this favors Rossi. I'm waiting.

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michaelm said:

To be completely honest it seems to me that yamaka and babel, and you, were both right in a sense and were arguing at cross purposes, in that whilst gyros may not be able to be directly used to determine track position, they and accelerometers would seem able to provide adequate information for engine mapping anyway.

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BarryMachine said:

Well no you have just put forward my point, Babel insisted that a gyro could be used to ascertain position on track, and when it wasn't going his way he roped Yamaka into the discussion without filling in Yamaka on the "finer details", in the end Yamaka did realise he was agreeing with me though I think.

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I work in the aerospace industry and have written software for Secondary Fight Displays amongst other things. SFDs include an Artificial Horizon Indicator.



SFDs have 3 gyros and an accelerometer. At start-up an SFD screen shows a count down, eg for 60 seconds. This is so that the gyros/acc can be calibrated. Any movement of the aircraft or an inclination of greater than a few degrees will cause the countdown to reset. Once the calibration is complete, compensation data has been calculated for all 3 axes and the accelerometer. The software then uses this data in its algorithms, resolving any long term drift issues.



The system also includes two tilt sensors - horizontal and vertical. These are accurate within +/- 60 degrees dependent on the accelerations they are experiencing. The system resolves real-time drift in the gyros using the tilts together with the accelerometer and corrects towards "reality" (the tilts) whenever appropriate (ie when not under large accelerations). The software for the system is far from trivial, but definitely feasible for MotoGP.



Using such a system, together with an electronic odometer which is reset every time the bike crosses the finish line, will provide you with sufficiently accurate information to determine which corner you are in. This would allow engine maps per corner, a la GPS.

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It is actually very difficult to determine the lean angle of a bike;

shallow-minded nerds would just put a g-sensor on it, but of

course this won't work; a bike only ever sees positive g

downwards relative to itself (give or take a few degrees due to

the rider hanging off).



There are solid-state gyroscopes which can be used, the avionics

systems of most large aircraft depend on these so they are

trustworthy technology, and the military have used their

development budgets to get them fairly light, small, and rugged

(if not cheap). An alternative is to use laser distance sensors

on the side of the bike to see how far away the ground is.

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