Honda Smart Windshield

Honda’s Gold Wing has been a platform for futuristic technology for decades, and now the company is working on a self-adjusting windshield intended to make it more comfortable and effort-free than ever before.

It might seem unnecessarily decadent to make windshield adjustment into a computer-controlled process, including microphones and even cameras to find just the right height and angle for every scenario, but there’s method behind the madness. Honda is working on a growing number of voice-controlled systems for future versions of the Wing and reducing wind noise to make sure the rider’s voice is clearly audible is an essential element in making those a success.

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The patent application for Honda’s auto-adjusting screen, filed in Japan, shows that the components include a microphone mounted on the rider’s helmet (although further patents also show a tank-mounted mic for voice control systems), plus a pair of cameras sitting on top of the mirrors and facing back toward the rider’s face. These, along with a bar-mounted control switch, feed their information to an ECU that controls the screen via the same sort of electric adjustment system that was introduced to the Gold Wing in 2018.

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In its simplest form, the microphone picks up wind noise and, allied to information about the bike’s speed, raises or lowers the windshield to reduce the noise and buffeting. However, that automation introduces the need for the camera system. Honda recognizes that in some positions the electric windshield is going to be a distraction to the rider, particularly if the screen’s upper edge is directly in his or her sightline. Since riders come in a variety of shapes and sizes, the patent explains that the cameras are used to monitor the position of the rider’s eyes, employing that information to generate a zone of heights that the windshield won’t stop inside, instead settling for whichever position above or below that zone is closest to ideal when it comes to reducing noise.

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Over and above that system, Honda envisages different “maps” for the screen’s adjustment, creating “wind protection priority” and “vision priority” settings that can be selected from the bars. Pick wind protection priority and the screen will occasionally impinge on the edges of the no-go zone in pursuit of minimizing noise. Choose vision priority and it will stay well clear of that sightline zone, even at the expense of additional noise.

The patent can be added to a growing pile of innovations that Honda’s R&D department has been working on for the Gold Wing. We’ve previously seen that Honda intends to introduce front and rear radars to the bike to enable a raft of rider-assist systems including adaptive cruise control, blind-spot warnings, and crash-mitigation braking, and there’s even work underway on more extreme rider aids including a steering-assist system. With rivals starting to get ahead on some tech, particularly radar and camera setups to “see” the bike’s surroundings and other vehicles, an updated Gold Wing might be coming sooner rather than later.