Alpinestars Unveils Electronic Airbag Suit for MotoGP Racers

By Nicolas Stecher
Motorcycle Airbag Suit Back

Rumor has it that this weekend's MotoGP race in Jerez, Spain, some riders will don electronic airbag protection suits as they race. Here's how they work.

April 30, 2010 4:47 PM Text Size: A . A . A
Airbags for motorcycles are nothing new; clever inventors have tinkered around with prototypes since the 1970s. But making the quantum leap from theory to practical application has been more difficult. While there are tether-based airbag suits on the market, the constraints of such systems limit their appeal. In many motorcycle accidents, the rider doesn't separate far enough from the bike for the airbag to deploy, undermining the suit's purpose.

Enter Alpinestars' Tech Air Race motorcycle suit, recently unveiled at the Italian firm's U.S. headquarters near Los Angeles. Unlike tether systems, the new suit is entirely self-contained, made up of seven sensors that continually take in data, a central processing unit (CPU) located in the aero hump (behind the helmet on the upper back), and two airbags positioned around the rider's shoulders.

Instead of a tether, the Tech Air Race suit's dedicated CPU makes the decision when to deploy. Of course, having a computer predict when a rider is about to have an accident is no easy task, which is why it took Alpinestars—one of the world's best-known motorcycle safety-equipment manufacturers—almost 10 years to create a track-ready model. The road to this stage has been long, filled with years of testing airbagless suits outfitted with sensors. Mountains of data have been analyzed and reanalyzed so that the suits can tell the difference between an accident and the everyday violence of running 800-cc motorcycles around a track at 200 mph. "It's looking at the behavior beforehand so you can predict the future—that's really where you have to spend the money," says Colin Ballantyne, senior engineer behind the Tech Air Race suit.

How It Works

The seven sensors and accelerometers are spread across the suit, feeding the CPU a constant stream of data such as g-forces and the rider's behavior and body orientations. The CPU, in turn, has a dedicated operating system that translates the data into algorithms that detect if you are indeed having an accident, or just riding really, really close to the ground. False firings would be not only inconvenient, but also very dangerous for a MotoGP racer, so the system goes through five levels of computations and safety checks before an accident is deduced and the airbags deploy.

The five-level decision process takes 8 milliseconds, at which time a nitrogen capsule attached to both the CPU and the airbags fires via a small pyrotechnic charge. The bags fully inflate in just 0.05 seconds and remain inflated for 5 seconds, then deflate after 25 seconds. After just 1 minute, the suit is ready to fire again. With two nitrogen capsules in the aero hump, Tech Air Race is the only suit in development that can fire twice without recharging. In a competition circuit like MotoGP, in which riders often crash more than once and continue racing, this is a clear advantage.

"When you give a rider protection twice over, you remove the psychological effect of having crashed and then riding without a safety system," notes Jeremy Appleton, Alpinestar's communications chief. "That's significant because it doesn't take much to change a racer's performance. You may have crashed and be getting over the shock of a high-speed accident, but when you get back on the bike and know that the system is still there for you, it means you're not going to feel naked or under any disadvantage," Appleton says. "Because a crash can happen again."

For now, Alpinestars has optimized the suit for specific protection to the shoulder and collarbone area, since shoulder traumas constitute 48 percent of motorcycle injuries. Still, the Tech Air Race suit is not limited to that region; the system is also modular. The position and shape of the airbags can be adapted to protect different areas of the body, and the volumes and air pressure can be modified as well, depending on biological need and force of impact.

The Bottom Line

Alpinestars hopes to have a consumer version of the suit ready for the marketplace in about 18 months, though it will be intended only for track racing, not everyday riding. While road-going and off-road versions are in development, complexities involved with each field of terrain mean another three to five years of development before they see daylight. Expect to pay about $2500 for the system over the cost of the leather suit itself—Alpinestars believes it's a small price to pay to avoid spending months in an arm sling.

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