When first revealed earlier this year, it was stunning to see Yamaha's Motobot ride the flagship R1 like an actual rider. & The development is certainly an interesting one and something that we & have kept our keen eye on. In fact, the Motobot posed a challenge to the & Japanese manufacturer's MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi, who decided to & pay a visit to the robot and check out his development. Being built at & Yamaha's San Francisco office in the US, Rossi visited the test site & during the American Grand Prix and the company has now released a video & showing the first encounter between the robot and motorcycle rider.

Built by Yamaha and its partner SRI International, the video showcases the progress & made by the team on the Motobot. While the first video showcased the & bike ride on a straight surface, the latest video showcases the Motobot & taking to corners and hills at the Thunderhill Raceway circuit. While & the robot may not be prepared enough to pose as a challenge to the & legendary MotoGP rider currently; the company does aim that its & ambitious project eventually mimics the actions of real riders complete & with knee downs.

Rossi looks intrigued with the project in the video and shows off some of his & skills on the track, the data of which will help Yamaha and SRI in & aiding the Motobot project.

For those still wondering why this is so & important, the Motobot project could just be the next big thing in & motorcycle development. This could also be Yamaha's potential answer to & Honda's ASIMO. The Motobot is the new kind of autonomous vehicle & technology to join the bandwagon on similar lines as the projects from & Google and Tesla. No wonder then, that the project has been commanded in & California.

The Autobot project will also help scale & development of even faster motorcycles, without having an actual rider's & life at stake. However, there is still sometime for the project to & reach those lengths and so is the eagerly awaited standoff between the & Autobot and Valentino Rossi. That said, the Japanese manufacturer aims & to have the Motobot make laps on a race track doing 200 km/h by 2017.

Source: Yamaha

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