Tech Special: KTM reveal new radar-enabled cruise control
KTM’s system automatically hits the brakes if it senses an imminent collision
A rear-facing radar checks the rider’s blind spot
KTM are the first motorcycle manufacturer to build a working prototype of a system that automatically controls a bike’s speed and warns of an imminent collision with another vehicle.
The Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system is likely to arrive on production bikes in 2020. Controlled by a forward facing radar, KTM’s ACC is linked to the bike’s cruise control. Just like similar systems on cars, it controls the bike’s speed in relation to the traffic ahead. When the cruise control is set, the forward facing radar checks for objects ahead and then automatically reduces the bike’s speed using either the ride-bywire throttle or by applying the front brake. Once the object is out of the way, the system increases the bike’s speed back to the pre-determined level set on the cruise control.
Gerald Matschl, KTM’s Research and Development Vice Principal, said: “The use of the front brake allows a higher rate of deceleration if required. At the moment we are working on a gap of roughly two seconds to the vehicle ahead, but in the future we will allow the rider to alter this distance and set their own parameters.” The ACC can’t detect a bicycle in the road or a pedestrian, so it is not an emergency braking system, and only operates when the cruise control is activated. It can, however, detect a motorcycle ahead and will react in the same way as it would to a car or a lorry.
The proximity warning system, which will be integrated into the ACC package, is again taken from the automotive world and uses a rear-facing radar to detect vehicles in the rider’s blind spot. If it senses a vehicle is there, it illuminates an LED light in the corresponding side’s mirror as well as a warning on the bike’s TFT dash until the object has moved out of the danger zone.
“It is very important for this technology that we take the hardware from the automotive industry and then develop our own algorithms to allow them to be economically viable for a motorcycle,” adds Matschl. “However it’s still not cheap technology to produce or install, so we will offer ACC on some premium models as a factoryfitted optional extra as it can’t be retro-fitted to a bike.” Expect the radar system to arrive in 2020, almost certainly on the firm’s range-topping 1290 Super Adventure S and 1290 Super Duke GT.