Firmware, or Else Your Segway Will Lean Backwards While Driving Full Speed
We move y’all
Segway has made information technology a passionate calling to move you – simply, efficiently and intelligently. The Segway Personal Transporter (PT) is the commencement two-wheel self-balancing electric vehicle to employ patented dynamic stabilising engineering science. Today, we at Segway are focused on offering our clients a rubber, unique production that newly defines personal motion for consumers and business clients.
How the Segway PT functions
To movement the Segway PT forward or backwards, the driver simply leans forward or backwards. To turn left or correct, the commuter elementary tilts the LeanSteer handlebars to the left or correct. When the driver stands upright, the vehicle stops. Segway engineers call this “dynamic stabilisation”. This body related steering belongs to the almost intuitive worldwide and contributes essentially to the fun of driving.
When Dean Kamen introduced the Segway PT on ABC’due south “Good Morning America”, he described the vehicle equally “the worldwide commencement cocky-balancing means of transportation for peopl”. It is piece of cake to understand what he means when you discover the vehicle in motion. Unlike a auto, the Segway PT has merely two wheels, which ways it is capable of standing upright past itself.
How dynamic stabilisation functions
The virtually fascinating feature of the Segway PT and the cardinal to its handling is its ability to independently maintain rest. To understand how the arrangement functions, information technology is helpful to look at Kamen’due south model for the vehicle – the human body.
If you stand up and lean so far forrad that you overbalance, you volition generally non fall flat on your face. The encephalon knows that you are non in a residual because the liquid in the inner ear has moved. This causes the feet to motility forrard to prevent a fall. Equally long as you lean frontward, the encephalon will initiate the forward foot movement. Instead of falling, yous move forwards 1 step afterward the other.
The Segway PT does pretty much the same, except that it has wheels instead of feet, a motor instead of muscles, a microprocessor instead of a encephalon and sophisticated balancing sensors instead of an inner ear balancing sense. Just like the brain, the Segway PT knows when the commuter leans forrad. To maintain balance, the vehicle moves the wheels at exactly at the correct speed. Segway calls this behaviour “dynamic stabilisation” and has patented this unique process that enables the Segway PT to maintain balance on but 2 wheels.
The brain and the muscles
The Segway PT is comprised of an intelligent network of sensors, mechanical components, a bulldoze system and a steering system. From the moment the driver stands on the vehicle, five gyroscopic sensors and two acceleration sensors brainstorm to analyse the terrain and trunk position 1 hundred times per 2nd.
The Coriolis Forcefulness describes the deflection of moving objects when they are viewed in a rotating reference frame. When one observes an aeroplane that apparently flies in a straight line, the line appears to be curved, equally the earth below is also moving.
The Segway PT has five gyroscopic sensors, fifty-fifty though only three are necessary, to measure the weight shifting forward and backward – the “pitch”, left and correct – the “roll” and the steering left and right – the “yaw”. The boosted sensors serve the redundance to brand the product fifty-fifty more reliable. Information about the weight shifting of the driver and the steering movement is transmitted together with the data from additional inclination sensors to the “brain” of the Segway PT.
The brain consists of two redundant electrical circuit boards, which are respectively fitted with a group of microprocessors. The bombardment and motor winding are besides redundant. They work together to share to the necessary propulsion of the workload. The Segway PT too has other additional microprocessors. The vehicle requires this much computing capacity because precise steering calculations must be carried out in the shortest possible fourth dimension to preclude toppling. If a circuit board or the associated battery, motor winding or wiring fails during the drive, the other redundant arrangement takes over all functioning. The system informs the driver almost defects and initiates a controlled stop.
The microprocessors utilise advanced software that steers the vehicle. The programme monitors all data that reaches it from the gyroscopic sensors and adjusts the speed of the electric motors accordingly. The electric motors, supplied from two rechargeable lithium ion batteries, are able to move each wheel independently at varying speeds.
If the vehicle is tilted forrad, the motors in both wheels motion forwards to forestall toppling over. If the vehicle is tilted backwards, the motors move the wheels backwards. If the driver operates the LeanSteer handlebars to turn left or correct, the motor in one wheel moves faster than the other or in opposite directions and then that the vehicle turns on the spot. While driving, the Segway PT takes centrifugal force into account and steers exactly the correct curve radius that is necessary to maintain balance.
Drive every bit if skiing
The Segway PT feels like an extension of the torso. The driver rapidly feels how the slightest steering impulse through body shifting sets the vehicle in motion. Segway driving is entirely intuitive and yous tin can main command of the vehicle in the shortest time. Thanks to the patented and loftier precision LeanSteer technology, you can not only steer the vehicle to the exact millimetre, just test out your sports driving ability, just like carving on skis. Just try information technology out for yourself!
