Alpinestars Introduces Electronic Airbag Technology

The electronic airbag technology is built into the hump of a road racing suit. Click to enlarge.

Motorcycle media were guests today at the Alpinestars headquarters in Torrance, California, where the Italian-based company introduced some new products and also proudly unveiled an all-new innovation – electronic airbag technology.

The idea of such protection has been floating around our industry for a while, but only now does Alpinestars have enough confidence in its prototype design to present it to the media. AStars is calling it the future of motorcycle safety and the latest major advance in protection technology.

We’re all familiar enough with the concept of airbags, and we’ll get into more detail about the Alpinestars airbag hardware after addressing the first question we had: How do you develop an electronic device that can recognize a motorcycle crash? Senior engineer on the project since 2004, Colin Ballantyne, gave a detailed presentation of the system to media, and despite his thick Scottish accent, there's a lot we learned about the incredibly complex programing that went into the AStars airbag.

Before (left) and after (right) deploying the airbags. There isn't a dramatic difference due to their compact size. Click to enlarge photo.

Obviously, the same technology used in cars won’t work with motorcycles, so the biggest challenge in the decade-long development of this product has been to create a system that can properly recognize a crash. To do that with electronics, you first have to find a way to mathematically define a crash. So how do you do that? How can a computer know what is and what is not a crash? What exactly are the indicators it looks for?

The answer to that question is incredibly complicated as it turns out. In a nutshell, seven sensors on the rider’s body determine whether or not you’re on a running bike, whether or not you’re moving, and the position and movement of your body. The software program designed to recognize a crash is a complex web of algorithms. First, it won’t even arm itself until you’re on a moving motorcycle, and it can tell this with an integrated GPS system. The suit also needs to be zipped up all the way before it activates. Next, it senses three different types of data, combines them, and double checks them before approving the decision to fire.

Senior engineer Colin Ballantyne explains how they came up with a mathematical definition of a crash. Click to enlarge photo.

To prevent accidental deployment and to ensure it is making the right decision, the right combination of three signals must pass through six barriers before the airbags will fire. It sounds like that might take a long time, but the data is processed in eight milliseconds.

Much like a smart bomb, the incredibly complex programming that goes into the electronic airbag technology is difficult to understand. It may be a challenge to trust in a piece of protective equipment when you can’t even pinpoint exactly what will trigger it, but engineers assured us – dropping it off a building or throwing it down the stairs will not cause it to fire. After 10 years of development and thousands of hours of testing with people such as MotoGP and Superbike racer John Hopkins, the Italian company is confident it has developed quite a precise system that will correctly diagnose a crash.

Nuts & Bolts

Moving on to the physical characteristics of the airbag technology – the electronics of it are built into the hump of a road-racing suit. The processor, batteries and two cartridges of compressed nitrogen are also onboard in the hump. The seven different sensors are placed throughout the suit, and, as Hopkins explained to media at today’s product introduction, you cannot feel them – it all feels like a normal set of leathers. The total added weight of the system is a mere 500 grams (1.1 pounds), which Hopkins also reported is not noticeable.

Following the in-suit demon- stration, Ballantyne activated an independent system. Click to enlarge photo.

The incorporated airbags are located in the shoulder, collarbone region (the area Astars identified as the most vulnerable to injury from impact), and are actually quite compact. As you can see from the photos, they are about the size of a hat and they inflate to a thickness of about 1.5 to two inches. When the system fires, one cartridge of nitrogen deploys the two airbags in a matter of milliseconds. The total pressure they inflate to is reportedly one bar (14.5 psi).

Here’s the very interesting part – the part that reminds you that the crew at Alpinestars constantly have racing on the brain. After a full five seconds at full inflation, the airbags slowly deflate themselves, and in about 25 seconds, your suit is back to normal. Since they deploy within the suit, and not externally, there is nothing the rider has to do – no repacking the bag or anything. Engineers took into consideration that, since the rider was protected in the crash, it’s likely that he’s going to jump up, get back on the bike, and get back in the race as quickly as possible.

The system immediately resets itself, and, within one minute, it is armed and ready to go for a second time. The system has enough power and enough nitrogen to fire twice before it’s time to take it in to be recharged and reloaded. Alpinestars engineers say that the initial units will need to be returned to the company for this, but the goal is to equip dealers to provide this delicate, but relatively simple service.

There's not much to see when the airbag is on board. It looks and feels like a regular suit. Click to enlarge photo.

When & How Much?

The goal of Alpinestars is to have the electronic airbag systems ready for race application as early as June 2011, and evaluation units will become available toward the end of next year.

The anticipated cost of the system is... not cheap. Over the cost of the suit itself, the estimated MSRP of system is around $2500.

The Future

After the racing application is satisfied, the next realm Alpinestars plans to focus on is road riding. With an obviously different set of parameters on the street than on the racetrack, the system will require a different system of algorithms, so estimated time of development before we see that hit the market is two to three years.

Only after race and road products are developed will the company get to work on applying the electronic airbag system to off-road. So for those of you among the “knobby” crowd, it looks like we’ll be waiting several years for a motocross/off-road version to come on the market.