How artificial intelligence and virtual reality are helping Ducati to dominate MotoGP

AI and VR are already huge in F1, with top teams using super-powerful computers and software to run hundreds of thousands of virtual laps (yes, hundreds of thousands) before each GP weekend.

Ducati does the same thing, but on a smaller scale, because MotoGP budgets are many times smaller than F1 budgets, and because modelling a motorcycle is much more difficult than modelling a car, because motorcycle dynamics are way more complex than car dynamics.

“Because of what the bike does and the fact that the rider is always changing position makes it much more complicated to model a bike than a car,” affirms Dall’Igna.

This is another reason why having eight bikes is such an advantage, because the more data you get the more accurate the modelling.

Ducati uses its vast data haul to run individual laps and race distances, via AI, VR and augmented reality. This allows its engineers to visualise how a tyre will perform over a single qualifying lap and how it will degrade during a race, what effect a geometry change, suspension adjustment or mapping tweak will have at certain stages of a race and so on. Thus engineers can find the right answer to improve real-world performance faster and more accurately, so they pretty much know how the motorcycle is going to behave before it leaves pitlane.

The advantages of modelling and simulation grow year by year, not only because the technology gets better, but because there’s less and less testing and practice time allowed, so virtual testing, practising and racing has a greater effect on results.

MotoGP manufacturers have built virtual 3D models and maps of race tracks for more than a decade, using LiDAR scanners, which are walked around tracks on trollies to record everything, from overall layout, corner angles, camber, environment and so on. But effectively correlating that to a computer-created model of their motorcycles is much more recent.

This is why Ducati’s title sponsorship with Lenovo isn’t merely a tool to flog more laptops, it’s a technical partnership that has Ducati using central high-powered servers via virtual desktops in the team garage, the team truck and in the factory race department, where, of course, modelling and simulation has a huge effect on short- and long-term machine development.

And this is one reason why some factories are poaching engineers from Ducati, most importantly Enea Bastianini’s and Andrea Dovizioso’s former crew chief Alberto Giribuola, who now oversees the factory KTM garage. Giribuola is a graduate of mechatronics, which mixes mechanical engineering, electronic engineering and robotics.