We know about the airbags in the cars which inflate to prevent us from getting serious brain damage to top other injuries which one might suffer during a car accident. Now, Alpinestar, the automotive and motorcycle safety gear manufacturing giant has come up with something alike for those riding two-wheelers. Their new innovation is called Tech Air Race motorcycle suit.
You would ask what’s new about airbags in a motorcycle suit. So here comes the technical part. The system is small enough to be wired directly into the Electronic Airbag Protection Suit and is monitored by a high-tech electronic brain. There is a lot of mathematical calculation that goes into ascertaining that an airbag doesn’t deploy when it is not necessary. Here is the amazing bit- it takes around eight milliseconds for the electronic brain to ascertain whether a crash is about to happen or not. Once that is determined, within the next 50 milliseconds, the seven sensors interspersed over the suit trigger the airbag to inflate fully and deflate within the next 25 seconds. Another ingenious addition is that a GPS system will locate where the accident has taken place.
The airbags include 2 cylinders that set off a cold charge of nitrogen. Within a minute the system is able to rearm itself once it has been used. For the moment, Ben Spies, Mika Kallio and Dani Pedrosa are trying these suits at MotoGP races. Their consumer ready suits will come out by June 2011, and the other applications will gradually follow. It is too early to say if the suit is c=going to be foolproof but their data does seem to indicate in its effectiveness. The suit will carry a hefty price tag of $2,500. But then again, one can’t really put a price tag on safety.
Via: Autoblog
