Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
DOI 10.1007/s11012-010-9304-1
The effect of rider’s passive steering impedance
on motorcycle stability: identification and analysis
V. Cossalter · A. Doria · R. Lot · M. Massaro
Received: 29 May 2009 / Accepted: 7 April 2010 / Published online: 8 June 2010
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract Many scientific papers deal with motorcy-
cle stability (weave and wobble modes) but very sel-
dom they take into account the passive response of
rider’s body. This paper aims at studying the interac-
tion of the rider’s arms and torso with the handlebar
and the frame. First the rider’s steering impedance is
identified from experimental tests on a motorcycle rid-
ing simulator, then this information is used on a motor-
cycle model and the effect on straight-motion stability
is investigated by eigenvalues calculation.
Keywords Motorcycle · Dynamics · Stability ·
Rider · Identification
1 Introduction
The modal and stability analysis of motorcycles gives
important information about riding safety, handling
capabilities and riding comfort. This is the main rea-
son of the large research effort made over the last
40 years to investigate the free-modes of a motorcy-
cle. The first systematic work on two-wheeled vehicle
stability dates back from 1971 [1]: it underlines the
V. Cossalter · A. Doria · R. Lot · M. Massaro ()
DIMEG—Department of Innovation in Mechanics and
Management, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1,
35131 Padova, Italy
e-mail: matteo.massaro@unipd.it
presence of three typical out-of-plane modes of vibra-
tion: weave, wobble, and capsize. In particular, weave
mode basically consists of yaw, roll and lateral oscil-
lations of the rear assembly, wobble mode is domi-
nated by the oscillation of the front assembly around
the steering axis, and capsize involves a roll motion
combined with a lateral displacement. A detailed re-
view of the existing papers is available in references
[2] and [3], however many authors consider neither the
frame compliance nor rider mobility. A detailed exper-
imental study on rider’s properties was made in [4]: the
authors measured the natural frequencies and damping
ratios of the body lateral motion and upper body lean-
ing for several riders. The effect of the rider’s inter-
action with the handlebar very rarely is dealt with in
literature, probably owing to the lack of experimental
data. In 2004 the coupled handlebar and rider’s torso
dynamics were taken into account by means of two
spring-damper systems connecting the upper rider’s
torso with the handlebar and the rear frame [5]. The
parameters were derived from a recent study on neuro-
muscular dynamics carried out on a car simulator [6].
In the current work the impedance the rider exerts on
the handlebar is identified from the rider’s modal prop-
erties measured on a motorcycle simulator [7, 8]. The
results are then used on a simple motorcycle model
and the effect on stability is discussed.
The paper is organized as follows. The mathemat-
ical model of the passive rider is briefly described in
Sect. 1; the identification method used for computing
biomechanical characteristics and to derive mean rider
280
characteristics is presented in Sect. 2; the comparison
between the rider and steering dampers transfer func-
tions is discussed in Sect. 3; the effect of rider’s steer-
ing impedance on weave and wobble stability is pre-
sented in Sect. 4.
2 Mathematical model
The motorcycle modes can be grouped in in-plane
modes and out-of-plane modes. The modes of the first
family, which involve the motion of the motorcycle
in its symmetry plane, are the pitch, bounce, front
and rear wheel hops. The modes of the second group,
which involve the lateral motion of the vehicle, are
the capsize, weave, wobble and rear wobble modes.
The in-plane modes affect the riding comfort and road
holding, whereas the out-of-plane modes strongly af-
fect the stability and safety of the motorcycle. It is well
known that in straight running in-plane and out-of-
plane modes are decoupled and can be examined sep-
arately. Since only straight-running simulations will
be carried out in the framework of this research, the
mathematical model describes only the out-of-plane
dynamics of the motorcycle and it is quite similar to
[1]. In the recent years this model has been success-
fully used as the basis of more sophisticated mod-
els that take into account important phenomena that
influence vehicle stability as frame compliance and
rider passive roll motion. This simple model (whose
equations of motion, state space matrices and para-
meters are fully and analytically reported in http://
www.dinamoto.it/UNIVERSITA/MSSM/MBSymba/
vehicles/motorcycle/motorcycle%20model.html) is
improved introducing the yaw rotation of the rider’s
torso θt with respect to rear frame and it is supposed
that the axis of rotation of the rider’s torso is parallel
to the vehicle’s steer axis. A spring damper element
that represents waist stiffness kt and damping proper-
ties ct links the torso to the rear frame, another spring
damper element which accounts for arms stiffness ka
and damping ca links the torso to the handlebar. There-
fore the system has a new vibration mode, because of
the new degree of freedom θt . The characteristics of
the springs and dampers, the moment of inertia of the
torso It and the inertia Ia added to the steer by the
rider were identified from experimental tests. This is
a very simple way to model vibrations of the human
muscle-limb system, which actually depend on cogni-
tive processes and on reflex actions.
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
Fig. 1 Motorcycle-rider model
The motorcycle model is depicted in Fig. 1 and has
five degrees of freedom: φ, δ, θt , ψ, y. Roll angle φ,
steer angle δ and rider’s torso angle θt with respect to
rear frame are generalized coordinates, whereas yaw
angle ψ and lateral position y are ignorable (or cyclic)
coordinates [9], because they do not appear in the
Lagrangian, but the corresponding derivative ψ̇ (yaw
rate), ẏ (lateral velocity) do appear. The wheels are
assumed to be thin disks, the tires lags are taken into
account by means of two relaxation equations and no
longitudinal slip condition is considered. The caster
angle is named ε. The meaningful differences with re-
spect to [1] are the two additional torques due to rider’s
torso motion and a new kinetic term:
Mt = −kt θt − ct θ̇t (1)
Ma = −ka (θt − δ) − ca (θ̇t − δ̇) (2)
1
KE = It θ̇t2 (3)
2
where Mt is the torque between rider and rear frame,
Ma is the torque between rider and handlebar, KE is
the additional kinetic energy.
The equations of motion were derived using MB-
Symba, which is a Maple® package for the sym-
bolic modeling of multi-body systems developed at the
MDRG (Motorcycle Dynamics Research Group), Uni-
versity of Padova. MBSymba is essentially an object-
oriented language for multi-body systems and con-
tains procedures for defining objects (such as refer-
ence frames, points, vectors, rigid bodies, forces and
torques) and additional procedures for manipulating
objects and deriving the equations of motion [10].
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
Fig. 2 The motorcycle riding simulator of MDRG
3 Measurement and identification
3.1 Testing equipment and methods
The biomechanical characteristics of the arms and
torso of the riders were measured by means of the mo-
torcycle riding simulator of MDRG, see Fig. 2. This
simulator can give to the rider motion cues by means
of a serial kinematics chain that moves a real motorcy-
cle mock-up. The degrees of freedom (DOF) are: steer
rotation, lateral displacement, roll, pitch and yaw rota-
tion of the motorcycle mock-up. For this research only
the steer rotation was used.
The steer rotation is driven by a brush-less ser-
vomotor controlled in closed loop. The handlebar
rotation is measured by means of a potentiometer;
the steering torque generated by the servomotor is
measured by means of a custom made torsiometer
mounted between the steer servomotor and the handle-
bar. After some preliminary tests carried out on a small
sample of riders with stepped-sine excitation [11] the
testing procedure was defined. The rider rides the mo-
torcycle mock-up and the servomotor generates har-
monic oscillations of the handlebar with constant am-
plitude and increasing frequency (linear sine sweep).
The typical parameters of the sweep are: mean ampli-
tude 2◦ (which is the typical magnitude of real bike
281
steer vibrations), frequency range 0.5–12 Hz (which
is the most interesting range when it comes to vehicle
stability), duration 200 s. During the tests both han-
dlebar rotation and steering torque are measured with
sampling rate 128 Hz.
Table 1 summarizes the features of the tests riders
that participated in the research program. The aim of
this research is to analyze the passive response of the
rider to handlebar oscillations, hence the behavior of
the rider during the tests has an important influence on
the results. The riders were instructed to grasp the han-
dles and not to withstand the motion of the handlebar
with voluntary actions. The relative location between
the saddle and handlebar is fixed and similar to the one
of Aprilia Caponord (longitudinal distance between
the saddle center and the steering head lss = 0.6 m,
vertical distance hss = 0.35 m). Since the height of
riders varies in the range 1.69–1.88 (see Table 1) small
differences among inclinations appear.
The measured data were analyzed in the frequency
domain and, in order to represent the rider’s response,
a frequency response function (FRF) was calculated.
Different definitions of FRF were considered taking
into account the quality of measured data and the iden-
tification task. The FRF between the measured steer-
ing torque and the handlebar rotation (which coincides
with the input steer rotation) is the most natural choice,
282 Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292

Table 1 Riders properties range, the dispersion of data is large at high frequency
Rider Height [cm] Mass [kg] Torso inclination [◦ ] and around the resonance peak. For the phase the dis-
persion of data is large only at low frequency, below
1 1.76 72 9 1.5 Hz.
2 1.85 74 7 Even if the riders who participated the research pro-
3 1.76 76 11 gramme have different characteristics (see Table 1),
4 1.86 85 11 the calculated FRFs show some common features.
5 1.69 56 13 The modulus of the FRF always shows a peak at
6 1.83 72 7 about 1.5÷2.5 Hz, a minimum at about 5 Hz and in-
7 1.70 61 15 creasing values at high frequency. See for example
8 1.78 66 6
Fig. 3, which refers to rider 5. The phase at low fre-
quency is about 130÷180◦ , then reaches a minimum
9 1.88 86 6
at about 3 Hz and, finally, increases at high frequency
10 1.72 73 8
range (see Fig. 3). It is worth highlighting that in the
high frequency range both the graph of modulus and
but it is an inverse function (ratio between an effort the graph of phase differ from the graphs of the iner-
variable and a flow variable) and inverse functions, tance of a single degree of freedom system.
when used in the analysis and identification of systems
3.2 Identification
with many DOF may lead to confusion and errors [12].
A receptance type FRF (ratio between the handle-
The identification of the biomechanical properties of
bar angle and the steering torque) shows large values
the rider’s body was carried out by means of a two
in the very low frequency band, before the first res-
degrees of freedom model [11], see Fig. 4. Two rigid
onance. Since in this band there are the largest mea-
bodies rotate about two axes (fixed to the motorcycle
surement errors, the use of a receptance type FRF for mock-up) that represent the steer axis (rotation θs ) and
identification may lead to errors. the axis of rotation allowed by the waist (rotation θt ).
On the contrary, an inertance type FRF (ratio be- Lumped springs and dampers connect the rigid bodies
tween the handlebar acceleration and the steering and the motorcycle mock-up.
torque), which is obtained multiplying the measured The rigid body that rotates about the steer axis (mo-
amplitude by angular frequency squared, gives more ment of inertia Is ) represents the handlebar with possi-
weight to the high frequencies amplitudes that are af- bly a contribution of the inertia of the hands and fore-
fected by small errors, this manipulation helps best arms. The rigid body that rotates about the waist axis
fitting of data. (moment of inertia It ) represents the torso of the rider
The spectrum of angular acceleration was calcu- with a share of the inertia of the arms.
lated multiplying the spectrum of handlebar rotation The springs and dampers between the two rigid
by angular frequency squared. Finally to minimize the bodies (ka and ca ) represent the equivalent stiffness
effect of noise, the inertance was calculated as the ra- and damping of the arms.
tio between the cross spectrum of angular acceleration The spring (kt ) and the damper (ct ) about the waist
of handlebar and steering torque and auto spectrum of axis represent the actions of the hips and of saddle
the steering torque [12]. on the rider’s torso. If during the tests the rider holds
In order to assess the quality of the experimental firmly the tank of the mock-up by means of the legs
results some repeatability tests were carried out. The these terms represent mainly the action of the rest of
riders performed many tests in the same conditions the body on the torso, otherwise these terms take into
and for each value of frequency the mean value μ and account the contact stiffness and damping between the
the standard deviation σ of the modulus and phase rider and the saddle.
of the FRF were calculated. Figure 3 shows the re- The external action of the servomotor on the system
sults obtained with rider 5, who carried out eight tests. is represented by rotation θs imposed to the handlebar
For the modulus the band between μ + σ and μ − σ and by torque Ms . Since the torsiometer is very stiff,
(which has the probability of containing 68.3% of re- there is a negligible difference between handlebar ro-
sults) is sufficiently narrow in the whole frequency tation and servomotor rotation.
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
Fig. 3 Modulus and phase of the FRFs of rider 5: mean value and standard deviation
Fig. 4 2 DOF identification model
The correspondences between the identification
model and the rider model integrated with the motor-
cycle model are the following: the fixed frame of the
identification model coincides with the rear frame of
the motorcycle; the rigid body with moment of inertia
Is is replaced by the actual front frame of the motor-
cycle, but the share of the inertia of the arms (included
in Is ) is added to the front frame inertia about the steer
axis.
283
More complex models of the rider can be devel-
oped: in which many limbs of the rider’s body are con-
sidered and many springs and dampers link the limbs.
These models make it possible to identify particular
properties of the rider’s body, but they increase the
complexity of the mathematical model.
For this reason the simple model of Fig. 4, which
can represent the interaction of the man with the ve-
hicle without too many details, is more suited to the
purpose of this research.
The equilibrium equations of torso and handlebar
are:
It θ̈t + ct θ̇t + ca (θ̇t − θ̇s ) + kt θt + ka (θt − θs ) = 0 (4)
Is θ̈s + ca (θ̇s − θ̇t ) + ka (θs − θt ) = Ms (5)
These equilibrium equations are easily combined to
give the transfer function between the steer torque
(measured output) and the steer rotation (enforced in-
put) which is useful for identification
θ̈s (ω)  
= − (−ω2 It + iω(ca + ct ) + ka + kt )ω2
Ms (ω)

× −(iωca + ka )2 + (−ω2 Is + iωca + ka )
−1
× (−ω2 It + iω(ca + ct ) + ka + kt ) (6)
The identification consists in determining the values
of the inertia of the two bodies (Is and It ), the stiff-
ness of the arms (ka ) and the stiffness about the waist
axis (kt ), the damping coefficients of the arms (ca ) and
about the waist axis (ct ).
The identification is carried out in the Nyquist
plane by minimizing the distance between the corre-
284 Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292

Fig. 5 Comparison between experimental FRF and best fitting FRF for rider 2

Table 2 Identified bio-mechanical parameters

Rider Is It ka kt ca ct νt ζt Radius res. Phase res.

(kg m2 ) (kg m2 ) (Nm/rad) (Nm/rad) (Nm/(rad/s)) (Nm/(rad/s)) (Hz) (%) ((rad/s2 )/Nm) (◦ )

1 0.1277 0.7626 1050.8 85.2 16.02 5.94 6.14 37.3 0.0697 7.34
2 0.1257 0.7587 946.9 91.7 21.75 7.30 5.89 51.8 0.0627 3.63
3 0.1250 0.8236 1436.5 45.7 40.69 2.59 6.75 61.9 0.0956 26.66
4 0.1253 0.7059 1851.8 166.2 22.04 9.25 8.51 41.4 0.1003 9.50
5 0.1266 0.5085 1358.2 81.0 16.35 4.98 8.47 39.4 0.1629 3.20
6 0.1250 0.9681 1444.7 126.8 47.22 7.07 6.41 69.6 0.0789 3.90
7 0.1256 0.6719 604.9 95.1 7.49 2.15 5.14 22.2 0.4028 9.28
8 0.1250 0.5080 1293.3 64.6 14.16 5.12 8.23 36.7 0.2843 9.79
9 0.1250 1.0167 1907.9 117.6 48.59 6.61 7.10 60.8 0.0471 14.57
10 0.2681 0.5644 502.4 81.0 29.27 2.36 5.12 87.2 0.1878 17.63
σ/μ 0.3220 0.2417 0.3790 0.3568 0.5505 0.4457 – – – –

Mean-rider 0.1250 0.6441 1053.4 75.8 19.28 4.79 6.66 44.6 0.1092 6.90

sponding points of the experimental and the theoreti-
cal curves as shown in Fig. 5.
The distance between the two curves at frequency
ω is:
d(ω) = (Mt (ω) cos(Pt (ω)) − Me (ω) cos(Pe (ω)))2
+ (Mt (ω) sin(Pt (ω))
− Me (ω) sin(Pe (ω)))2
in which Mt (ω), Pt (ω) are the modulus and phase of
the theoretical FRF and Me (ω), Pe (ω) of the experi-
mental FRF.
The algorithm is based on the lsqcurvefit function
of MATLAB and the total distance between the theo-
retical and experimental points from 0.5 Hz to 12 Hz
(7) is minimized.
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
Table 2 shows the identified bio-mechanical para-
meters of some riders.
The values of Is (with the exception of rider 10) are
very close to 0.125 kg m2 , which is the experimental
value of the moment of inertia of the handlebar stand-
ing alone. This result indicates that the presence of the
rider does not significantly increase the inertia about
the steer axis, but mainly increases the stiffness and
damping of the steer.
For all riders the inertia of the torso (It ) is larger
than the inertia of the handlebar.
Arm stiffness ka is about one order of magnitude
larger than waist stiffness kt . Similarly, damping coef-
ficients ca is from 3 to 8 times ct .
It is worth highlighting that, if resulting stiffness of
springs ka and kt in series and the resulting damping
of dampers ca and ct in series are calculated, values
similar to the ones of the single stiffness and damping
identified in [6] (tense rider) are found.
The natural frequency νt refers to the torso vibra-
tion when the steer is locked and is calculated by
means of equation:

1 (ka + kt )
νt = (8)
2π It
It ranges from 5 to 9 Hz.
The corresponding damping ratio is:
(ca + ct )
ζt = 100 √ (9)
2 (ka + kt )It
and it assumes values from 22 to 90%.
The last columns deal with the quality of the identi-
fication. The residual radius is the mean difference be-
tween the radii of the corresponding points of the mea-
sured and the best fitting FRF curves in the Nyquist
plot. The values of the radius range from 0 to 4
((rad/s2 )/Nm) and the residual radius is always lower
than 0.41 ((rad/s2 )/Nm). The phase residual is the
mean difference between the phases of the correspond-
ing points of the measured and the best fitting FRF
curves in the Nyquist plot. The values of the phase
range from 180 to 40◦ and the phase residual is lower
than 27◦ . These values highlight that the proposed
model is well suited to fit the experimental results.
The analysis of the identification results, which are
shown in Table 2, highlights that coefficient of varia-
tion σ/μ (ratio of the standard deviation to the mean)
of some biomechanical characteristics is rather large.
285
This result is not surprising because there are large dif-
ferences in physique, riding experience and behavior
among the riders.
Since the main purpose of this research is to carry
out a general analysis of the influence of the passive
response of the rider’s body on motorcycle stability,
the definition of the biomechanical properties of an
mean rider is useful. In fact the study of the influence
of the biomechanical characteristics of the mean rider
on motorcycle stability gives more general results than
the study of the effect of the identified biomechanical
properties of a single test rider.
The characteristics of the mean rider were identi-
fied by calculating the mean FRF (modulus and phase)
of the measured FRFs and carrying out the identifi-
cation using the mean FRF. The last row of Table 2
shows the biomechanical characteristics of the mean
rider and the residuals of the identification.
4 Rider’s impedance vs. steering dampers
The rider’s body generates torques on the handlebar
and on the rear frame that are functions of the steer
motion, like a steering damper does. There is an im-
portant difference: the steer damper generates equal
torques on the steer and on the rear frame, whereas the
rider’s body generates different torques on the steer
and on the rear frame owing to the presence of iner-
tia It .
The two systems may be compared by analyzing
their transfer functions. In the frequency domain the
torque generated on the steer by rider’s body is:
Ma (ω) = −(iωca + ka )(θs (ω) − θt (ω)) (10)
The FRF between this torque and the steer rotation (in-
put) is derived by introducing in (10) the transfer func-
tion between torso rotation (output) and steer rotation
(input), which is easily derived from (4):
Ma (ω) (iωca + ka )(−ω2 It + iωct + kt )
=− (11)
θs (ω) (−ω2 It + iω(ca + ct ) + ka + kt )
The torque generated on the rear frame by rider’s body
is
Mt (ω) = (kt + iωct )θt (ω) (12)
286
Fig. 6 FRFs of rider’s generated torques, mean rider
Hence, the transfer function between the torque on the
rear frame and the steer rotation (input) is:
Mt (ω) (iωca + ka )(iωct + kt )
=+ (13)
θs (ω) (−ω2 It + iω(ca + ct ) + ka + kt )
From the mathematical point of view the poles of (11)
and (13) are identical and depend on torso dynam-
ics. In (11) there is a zero related to arm stiffness and
damping and a couple of zeros related to torso dynam-
ics. In (13) the couple of zeros related to torso dynam-
ics is replaced by a single zero that depends only on
torso stiffness and damping.
As the steering damper is concerned, assuming (as
usual) a linear relationship between the torque and the
steer rate, the transfer function is simply a derivator,
whose slope is related to the damping coefficient cd
Md (ω)
= iωcd (14)
θs (ω)
Figure 6 makes a comparison between the transfer
functions of rider’s generated torques and the steering
damper torque (three values of cd are considered: 0.5,
4.0 and 7.5 Nm s/rad).
Figure 6 clearly shows that before the resonance
the amplitudes of the two FRFs of rider’s generated
torques are almost the same and the phases are 180◦
apart. Actually, in this range of frequencies the rider’s
body behaves like a spring-damper system that gener-
ates equal and opposite torques on the front and rear
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
frames of the vehicle. The common amplitude of the
two body’s FRFs is larger than the amplitude of the
steering damper FRF with the largest cd . Near and af-
ter the resonance the dynamics of torso becomes im-
portant and the FRFs of rider’s generated torques be-
come more and more different in amplitude and phase.
The FRF of the torque generated on the steer by the
rider remains larger than the steering damper FRF
(cd = 7.5) and assumes the same slope. The FRF of
the torque generated on the rear frame by the rider
does not increase with frequency after the resonance
and, therefore, at high frequency it is smaller than the
steering damper FRF with cd = 0.5.
5 Numerical analysis
In order to assess the effect of the rider’s passive
impedance on the vehicle stability, numerical modal
analysis has been carried out in straight-running mo-
tion for speeds from 1 to 60 m/s. Figure 7 shows the
comparison between the eigenvalues of the reference
model, which does not consider the rider’s impedance,
and the presented model, for the mean rider defined in
Table 2.
It should be highlighted that the stability results
presented herein are valid under the hypothesis that the
rider is completely passive, which is a good assump-
tion for studying stable riding and incipient instability.
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292 287

Fig. 7 Root locus of reference and mean rider models

Of course, when an instability takes place and the vi-

bration amplitude increases markedly, the rider’s be-
havior is largely unpredictable.
The well-known weave and wobble vibration
modes are clearly visible in the root-locus, as well
as the rear wobble which will not be analyzed, be-
cause it is stable in the whole speed range. In the
reference model, the weave mode is unstable up to
6 m/s, then is stable, but stability decreases if speed
increases; the frequency rises from 0 to 3.8 Hz with
speed. When rider’s impedance is included the weave
looses the oscillatory characteristic for speeds from 1 Fig. 8 Weave for Mean rider (v = 30 m/s, f = 2.89 Hz)
to 4 m/s, and reduces its stability with respect to refer-
ence model at high speeds. Moreover when taking into
account rider’s impedance the weave become unstable
for speeds from 34 to 57 m/s. Since the eigenvectors
are complex, they are represented by plotting in the
complex plane the vectors that show the displacements
of the various degrees of freedom (phasors). In Figs. 8
and 9 the phasors of the weave eigenvector at 30 (sta-
ble) and 50 m/s (unstable) are depicted.
As expected for weave, the yaw is quite in phase
opposition with respect to steer rotation and the roll
lags behind the steer rotation about 110◦ at high speed
(Fig. 9). The new component of the rider torso rotation
θt is almost in phase with steer, and its magnitude is Fig. 9 Weave for Mean rider (v = 50 m/s, f = 3.37 Hz)
comparable with the ones of other components.
Contrary to the reference model, which has a cap- As far as the wobble mode is concerned, in the ref-
size mode stable up to 10 m/s, the capsize is slightly erence model the mode is stable up to 58 m/s: stability
unstable in the whole speed range if the rider’s im- first increases with speed (from 1 to 13 m/s) and then
pedance is taken into account. decreases; the frequency does not change very much
288 Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292

Fig. 10 Wobble for Mean rider (v = 1 m/s, f = 9.06 Hz) Fig. 11 Wobble for Mean rider (v = 60 m/s, f = 10.75 Hz)

with speed, keeping its value around 9 Hz. When the

rider’s impedance is included the wobble mode moves
towards the left zone of the root-locus: i.e. its damp-
ing increases (from ζ = 0–0.1 to ζ = 0.5) and its fre-
quency slightly rises up at high speed (about 1 Hz
at 60 m/s). The eigenvectors at 1 and 60 m/s are de-
picted in Figs. 10 and 11: the steer rotation is the main
component, but also a significant rider torso rotation
is present. Besides there is a new vibration mode with
respect to reference model (rider-wobble mode) which
mainly consists in the rider’s torso rotation (Figs. 12
and 13), but also includes a significant steer rota-
tion component. The rider-wobble mode frequency is Fig. 12 Rider-Wobble for Mean rider (v = 1 m/s, f = 6.73 Hz)
notfar from the one of the single DOF rider model
(νt 1 − ζ 2 = 5.96 Hz, see Table 2); its stability first
increases with speed (up to 10 m/s) then decreases. It is
to be noted that in case of wobble the rider torso rota-
tion is almost in phase opposition with respect to steer
rotation, whereas in case of rider-wobble the two rota-
tions are almost in phase. Actually the wobble and the
rider-wobble modes affect only two degrees of free-
dom (δ, θt ). According to the modal analysis of two
degrees of freedom systems there are two modes of
vibration: a higher frequency mode (wobble) with the
motion of the two DOF in phase opposition, and a
lower frequency mode (rider-wobble), with in-phase
motion.
Fig. 13 Rider-Wobble for Mean rider (v = 60 m/s,
Finally, it can be stated that the rider’s impedance f = 5.20 Hz)
always stabilizes the wobble mode (as confirmed by
road tests). The rider-wobble mode has lower fre-
quency and higher damping ratio than the reference effect is not reported in literature, but our preliminary
wobble and the wobble mode has higher damping ratio road tests seem to confirm this result). From this point
than that of the reference. The effect of the rider’s im- of view the effect of the rider’s impedance is similar
pedance on the weave mode is opposite, since it moves to that of the steer damper, with the difference that the
the high speed weave towards the unstable zone (this rider’s impedance is not a design parameter.
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292 289

Fig. 14 Root locus of reference model (gray circles), mean rider model (black circles) and reference model with increased steering
damping coefficient (black squares)

Fig. 15 Root locus of reference model (gray circles) and mean rider model with decreased arm damping (black circles)

If these results are compared with those of [5],
which is the work that pioneered the effect of rider’s
steering impedance on stability, some differences ap-
pear. In particular in [5] the wobble stabilization is less
significant than the one obtained in this work and the
effect on weave is almost negligible: on the contrary
in this work the weave destabilization due to rider’s
impedance is clearly visible.
In both papers the passive rider models for yaw dy-
namics are similar (i.e. the rider torso is connected
both to the rear frame and to the handlebar by means
of spring-damper elements), but [5] includes also a
model for the rider passive roll dynamics and simu-
lates a different vehicle. In this paper only yaw dy-
namics has been considered with the specific pur-
pose of highlighting the effect of steer impedance;
further developments of the model with the inclu-
sion of body passive response to roll and pitch are
planned.
However the authors think that the differences on
wobble and weave stability depend mainly on the pa-
rameters chosen for the tuning of the passive rider
model. In particular in [5] the parameters for the rider
yaw dynamics come from car literature [6], on the
contrary in this work the data for the rider yaw dy-
namics have been identified on a motorcycle mock-up,
thus involving different muscles and a different pos-
ture.
Before moving to the sensitivity analysis on rider’s
properties, it is interesting to compare the effect of
290 Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292

Fig. 16 Root locus of reference model (gray circles) and mean rider model with increased arm damping (black circles)

Fig. 17 Root locus of reference model (gray circles) and mean rider model with decreased waist damping (black circles)

steering damper on stability as compared to the effect
of the rider’s passive model. Indeed one may won-
der if it is the same to model the rider’s passive im-
pedance with an additional steering damper instead
of using the passive rider model presented in this pa-
per. In Fig. 14 the root-locus of the mean rider passive
model (black circles) is depicted against the reference
model (gray circles, no passive rider model) and the
reference model with the steering damper coefficient
increased by 7.5 Nm s/rad, i.e. equal to 14.2 Nm s/rad
(black squares). Please note that in the 2–7 Hz range
the magnitude of the transfer function of the steering
damper is close to that of the passive rider, see Fig. 6.
When inspecting Fig. 14 it is clear that the effect of
steering damper on stability is different when com-
pared with that of rider’s passive model, as expected
according to the consideration of Sect. 3. In partic-
ular, when using an increased steering damper wob-
ble mode increases its stability similarly to what hap-
pens with the rider passive model (see rider-wobble in
Fig. 14) but it does not reduce its frequency as it hap-
pens with the rider passive model (see rider-wobble).
As the weave is concerned, this vibration mode is
slightly more stable than the one obtained with the
rider passive model.
A sensitivity analysis has been carried out to an-
alyze the influence of the biomechanical parameters
that show the largest coefficients of variation. The fol-
lowing figures show the differences between the eigen-
values obtained with the biomechanical parameters of
Meccanica (2011) 46: 279–292
Fig. 18 Root locus of reference model (gray circles) and mean rider model with increased waist damping (black circles)
the mean rider and the eigenvalues obtained with mod-
ified biomechanical parameters.
As far as arm damping ca is concerned Figs. 15
and 16 show a large influence on the wobble mode,
a minor influence on the rider-wobble and a negligible
influence on the weave. The increase in arm damping
increases wobble stability, as expected.
Figures 17 and 18 show that waist damping ct has
a small effect on stability, actually its value is much
smaller than the one of ca , see Table 2.
6 Conclusions
A dynamic model of the rider’s body has been devel-
oped and integrated in a motorcycle multi-body model
to study the influence of the rider passive behavior on
motorcycle stability in straight motion.
The parameters of the rider model have been iden-
tified by means of experimental tests on a motor-
cycle riding simulator: the frequency response func-
tion between the enforced steer motion and the steer-
ing torque has been measured for a population of 10
riders who were instructed to assume a relaxed pos-
ture.
The importance of the passive response of the
rider’s body (in terms of torques exerted on the han-
dlebar and on the rear frame) has been quantitatively
highlighted by a comparison with a conventional steer-
ing damper.
The numerical analysis of stability performed with
the new model has shown that the passive response
291
of rider’s body causes a significant stabilization of the
wobble mode, but may destabilize the weave mode at
high speed. This effect is similar to the one caused by
the steering damper.
Future work will deal with the influence of posture
on the dynamic behavior of the motorcycle-rider sys-
tem.
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