Engineers have already used the program to design a bike that they hope will break the world speed record this fall in Nevada.
The current record for a bicycle travelling across flat road is 133.78 km/h, set in 2012 by a Dutch team at the World Human Powered Speed Challenge, which takes place every year in the Nevada desert. But this September, a team from IUT Annecy aims to beat that record. The team used artificial-intelligence-based software developed by Neural Concept, an EPFL startup, to boost the performance of its bike. In just a few minutes, Neural Concept's technology can calculate the optimal shape of a bike to make it as aerodynamic as possible. It can also be used for aerodynamics calculations in a number of other applications. The company is presenting its software in Stockholm today at the International Conference on Machine Learning.
From the outside, the IUT Annecy team's recumbent bike looks more like a tiny racecar than a human-powered bicycle. It was custom-made to fit closely to the cyclist's body. During the Challenge, he will have to ride down a 200-meter stretch of straight, flat road as fast as possible, after a run-up of 8 km. The design objective clearly isn't cyclist comfort, but making the most out of every inch of the vehicle.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-07-artificial-intelligence-ultra-aerodynamic-bike.html#jCp
No comments: