Advances in Motorcycle Design and Control

T he design and development of modern road vehicles calls for a combination of disparate engineering disciplines. Customer requirements include stringent performance, reliability, and safety specifications. If these requirements are to be met in a cost-effective manner, modern design and manufacture processes must be used. In addition, these processes must be able to produce new vehicles in a competitive time frame. In the last decade, the intensive use of information technologies has proven to be effective in meeting these requirements; in particular, control, simulation, and design methodologies have been instrumental in improving vehicle performance. Control system contributions include antilock braking and sophisticated engine management systems, which are now commonplace. The crucial role played by information technologies such as integrated development tools goes beyond computer-aided design aids to include sophisticated computer-based prediction and analysis tools. New vehicle components and assemblies can now be created, and their performance predicted, in virtual simulation environments. Indeed, complete vehicles can be assembled and evaluated using performance criteria ranging from fatigue durability to handling and performance characteristics prior to the physical manufacturing of the vehicle’s components. When used in combination with physical testing systems, computer-aided engineering and virtual prototyping tools offer the potential for the further reduction of vehicle development cycle times and costs since these tools facilitate a high level of product maturity at the conceptual stage of the development process. Computeraided engineering paradigms unite designers and analysts in a common framework in which computer-aided design and powerful simulation packages are now combined. Control engineers are already at ease in this environment, since the use and development of software simulation packages are standard parts of their everyday professional lives. We expect the control engineering community to continue to contribute to technological progress in the automotive industry by working on theoretical and applied challenges of which simulation and virtual prototyping tools are an integral part. Although the motorcycle industry lags behind the automotive industry with respect to economic importance, the number of motorcycles in circulation is large and in some countries surpasses the number of cars on the road. Scooters, mopeds, and light motorcycles are in high demand in urban areas due to their ability to avoid traffic congestion as well as their low fuel and running costs. In Italy, more than 3.5 million motorcycles are in circulation with AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL SECTION