Self Balancing Electric RC Bike

The Future of Commuting?

• Bicycles, electric bikes and motorcycles are ideal city transportation
• Driving these vehicles comes with a learning curves and increased danger to the operator.

Self Balancing Electric Bicycle

• The bike will balance with the use of air, a gyroscope, or a reaction wheel.
• Will stay upright when moving or stopped.
• Will be able to side traverse terrain with a grade.
• Acceleration and deceleration can be controlled by user with controller.
• Control system for steering, use of dc motor with belt to control steering

Example Self-Balancing Bike with reaction/inertia wheel

Example Self-Balancing Bike with gyroscope

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Reaction Wheel

Use of Air as a Balancing Force

• Two fans mounted on either side of the bicycle.
• A feedback system lets the system know the roll of the bicycle. The fans help correct to keep the bicycle vertical.
• Powerful enough fans to correct for the weight of a tipping bicycle.
• Fans would have to be constantly in motion to be able to balance themselves out.

Fan balancing system

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Example of a self balancing vehicle that uses air

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Gyroscope

• A gyroscope uses the inertia of rotation to help keep the bicycle upright.
• A gyroscope would rotate in the vertical plane.
• The gyroscope is free to move in the yaw axis.
• A feedback system would let the gyroscope know which way to move to help correct the roll of the bicycle.

Gyroscope

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Rotational axes

Reaction Wheel

• Reaction wheel is oriented on the same roll axis as the bicycle.
• The inertia of the flywheel helps balance out tipping.
• A feedback system will let the controller know where the roll of the bicycle is and the flywheel will help correct the position.

Example Reaction Wheel

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General Bike Design Concepts

• Bike will be able to counteract an outside force on the bike to stay balanced.
• DC battery mounted on bike
• Rear wheel drive
• Utilize existing bike frame for construction or
• Possible design of custom frame to lower center of mass and mechanically help with stability

Front View of Bike in motion

System Diagram

Electrical Flow diagram

Dc Powered Rear Wheel

• Having Powered rear wheel will give up the chance to demonstrate the self stabilization as the bike is in motion. We will do this by remote control to drive the bike.
• 2 options for powering the rear wheel are a shaft driven motor or a hub motor.
• Battery will be mounted on bike to power motor.

Mounted battery pack

Steering Control System

• Belt Driven Steering system
• Dc motor to move belt
• Potentiometer to give location feedback
• Control system implemented using microcontroller
• User input through Remote control will control steering.

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Remote controller

Belt driven steering

Motor

Division of Responsibilities

Rigel → Self Balancing portion, Mechanical designs eg. mounting motors, reaction wheel system, frame adjustments, interfacing remote control.

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Brett → Control system for steering, Rear powered wheel, interfacing remote control, wiring harness, battery implementation.

Key Components

• Bike frame
• Reaction wheel
• DC motor for reaction wheel
• DC motor for steering
• DC motor for driving
• Microcontroller
• Accelerometer

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Reaction Wheel

Single Microcontroller

Accelerometer

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Bicycle

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Research Topics

• Rigel will research DC motors.
• For the project the reaction wheel motor will need to be able rapidly accelerate.
• Generally exploring different motors and their advantages and disadvantages.

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• Brett will research wireless communication.
• For the project simple one direction wireless communication.
• Generally researching different forms of communication and what they are best for.