MotoGP 2017: Ducati hopes machine learning will return its new bike to winning ways

The Internet of Things might be the next big thing for our homes, but it's beginning to play a bigger role in motorsport too. After announcing an IoT-based partnership with Williams earlier this year, Accenture has now announced it will be helping the Ducati MotoGP team develop its 2017 challenger and hopefully return the team to winning ways. Accenture's latest project involves two of the most important parts of vehicle development – simulations and data collection – and combines them both to make R&D an even faster, more intuitive process. During testing at least, bikes have around 100 IoT sensors onboard, measuring everything from tyre temperature to oil pressure and much more, and after each run, engineers must sift through the numbers, and work out what to do next. Simply put, Accenture's Integrated Machine Learning software essentially works by learning real-world data, and then producing its own educated predictions.