Honda Airbags for Bikes

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Honda’s latest patent filings show new curtain-style airbag designs for motorcycles are in the works. (Honda/)

It’s been 15 years since Honda debuted the world’s first production motorcycle airbag system as an option on the Gold Wing, back in 2006. After all that time, the Wing remains the only production bike on the market that’s offered with an airbag. But even if the technology hasn’t been an overnight success, Honda is clearly still sold on the idea, as the firm has recently filed patent applications for three new airbag designs that might one day make it to production bikes.

Fifteen years on, Honda’s Gold Wing Tour Air Bag DCT remains the only production motorcycle available with an airbag. (Honda/)

Honda’s reasoning behind airbags is sound. According to the firm’s data (it’s from 2003, but still relevant today), some 68 percent of injury-causing bike crashes are frontal collisions, with the vast majority of injuries caused by riders hitting either a car, the road, or another object. So the potential reduction in harm that might be achieved by inserting a pillowy cushion of air between the rider and those obstacles in the event of a crash is significant.

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So why has the system been limited to the Gold Wing so far? The most likely explanation is one of modeling. To work out how to make an airbag effective, designers need to be able to predict the movement of the rider during an accident. In a car, that’s easy—the driver and passengers are strapped in place and don’t move about much. On a bike, riders tend to hang off in corners, sit up, crouch down, lean from side to side—it’s a much more physical activity than driving, and one that means there’s no guarantee of precisely where the rider will be, or what pose he will be in, in the event of a crash. The Gold Wing is, of course, an exception to that rule; its seating is designed to be car-like, minimizing rider movement, and thus making it easier to design an airbag that will work.

One of the new patents shows the positioning of the bag just north of the instrument panel on a PCX-style scooter. (Honda/)

The other type of bike that fits the same criteria is the scooter, and the latest Honda patents suggest that’s where the company is focusing its attention now. Mainly used in cities, scooters are also arguably more likely to fall victim to the classic accident where a car pulls across the bike’s path, creating an instant wall in front of the rider and giving them little or no opportunity to swerve or brake.

The three new Honda designs are all illustrated on a PCX-style scooter, although since the patents’ focus is on the bags, there’s no reason to think they couldn’t be used on other bikes if they prove effective. On all three new designs, the shape of the airbag itself is very different to the existing Gold Wing design. Where the Wing’s airbag is a classic balloon shape, filling the space between the rider and the bars when inflated, with straps that hold it in position, the new designs show a more curtain-style bag—similar to the side airbags that cover the windows of many modern cars in the event of a crash. It appears that the idea is simply to provide a cushion that covers as much of the possible crash area as possible to mitigate any initial impact injuries, rather than—as on the Gold Wing—to keep the rider, car-style, in his seat.

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The new designs focus on how to position the bag to achieve the curtain-style “wall” of protection. In the first, the airbag is positioned just ahead of the bars and folds into a C-shaped enclosure that surrounds the instrument panel, with the airbag structure supported on the same bracket that holds the dash. It’s this packaging that forms the basis of the patent.

Another patent positions the bag under the windshield, which can flip forward to let the bag deploy upward. (Honda/)

In a second design, the airbag unit is mounted further forward, ahead of the instruments and under the bike’s windshield. This presents the problem of how to allow its expansion directly upward, and Honda’s solution, which it aims to protect with the patent, is to allow the entire screen to flip forward as the bag deploys.

The final patent shows the bag mounted directly onto the handlebar. (Honda/)

The third of the new designs takes a more straightforward route in positioning the airbag, mounting it directly on top of the bars. However, acknowledging that having an explosive inflator mounted there might be asking for trouble, the patent suggests a solution of mounting the inflator remotely, down on the bike’s steering head, with a flexible pipe running up to the bar-mounted airbag. In the event of a crash, the explosive inflator goes off as normal, generating the gas to fill the bag, which is then routed through the pipework to the bag itself—ensuring the explosion happens as far away from the rider as possible.

This third patent also has the explosive inflator located down on the steering head away from the rider. Again, the bag deploys directly upward in front of the rider. (Honda/)

All three solutions to the mounting problem appear to make sense, and there’s no indication which—if any—Honda will pursue. What is clear, though, is that the firm’s R&D budget is still being spent on the idea of motorcycle-mounted airbags, even if the progress toward their mainstream adoption is moving at a snail’s pace.

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