BikeShake: the design of an indoor simulator dedicated to motorcycle ride testing as an interactive project

A servo-hydraulic road simulator test rig (aka four-poster) can play a key role in testing and development of road vehicles. Its use for durability testing, NVH analysis, suspension setup optimization etc. is widespread. Engineers often make use of four-poster testing to validate their dynamic simulation models as well. The use of a so-called four poster is normally restricted to four-wheeled vehicles, typically passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. Motorbikes might also require similar R&D activities, even more so now that the market appears to be interested in electronically adjustable and semi-active suspension systems, especially for adventure/touring bikes; however, there are not many specific rigs around. This work proposes a method to retrofit a four-poster into a two-poster dedicated to motorbikes by means of a simple auxiliary structure: the so-called BikeShake. A case study has been reported at the end of the paper to validate the project.