Self-balancing unicycle

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A self-balancing unicycle (also electric unicycle) is a self-balancing unicycle personal transporter. The rider controls the speed by leaning forwards or backwards, and steers by twisting the unit using their feet. The self-balancing mechanism uses gyroscopes, accelerometers in a similar way to that used by the Segway PT.

Video Self-balancing unicycle

Theory of operation

Most commercial units are self-balancing in the direction of travel only (single axis) with lateral stability being provided by the rider; more complex fully self-balancing dual-axis devices also need to self-balance from side to side. The control mechanisms of both use control moment gyroscopes, reaction wheels and/or auxiliary pendulums and can be considered to be inverted pendulum.

Maps Self-balancing unicycle

History

Early experimentation

See also Monowheel

A hand-power monowheel was patented in 1869 by Richard C. Hemming with a pedal-power unit patented in 1885. Various motorized monowheels were developed and demonstrated during the 1930s without commercial success and Charles F Taylor was granted a patent for a 'vehicle having a single supporting and driving wheel' in 1964 after some 25 years of experimentation.

Commercialisation

In 2003, Bombardier announced a conceptual design for such a device used as a sport vehicle, the Embrio. In September 2004 Trevor Blackwell demonstrated a functional self-balancing unicycle, using the control-mechanism similar to that used by the Segway PT and published the designs as the Eunicycle. In November 2006 Janick and Marc Simeray filed a US patent for a compact seatless device, the same year that Aleksander Polutnik demonstrated a first two-axis balancing human-ridable unicycle, the Enicycle. In 2008, Focus Designs released the first commercially available self-balancing unicycle and RYNO Motors demonstrated their prototype unit.

Shane Chen of Inventist launched the compact seatless 'Solowheel' in February 2011 and in the following month concluded a licensing agreement with the Simeray brothers and filed a patent relating to the device which was challenged by the Simeray brothers in a related patent application filed in 2015.

Late in 2015, the Ford Motor Company patented a "self-propelled unicycle engagable with vehicle", intended for last-mile commuters.

src: trendyscooter.com

Popular culture

• A self-balancing unicycle was described in 1969 in The Man From R.O.B.O.T., a short story by science fiction author Harry Harrison.
• Fenton Crackshell, a Disney character, is depicted wearing a robotic unicycle suit as Gizmoduck.
• Demolishor, a Decepticon from the 2009 Transformers sequel, whose robot mode is a gigantic robotic unicycle.
• The "tumblebugs" in The Roads Must Roll
• The protagonist in the Flash browser game, Little Wheel.
• Thor, fictional inventor of the wheel and the comb, of the comic strip B.C..
• Securitrons from Fallout: New Vegas.

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Gallery

src: www.thegreenhead.com

See also

• Regulation of personal transporters
• Self-balancing scooter (with two parallel wheels)
• Ballbot, a dynamically-stable mobile robot designed to balance on a single spherical wheel
• Honda U3-X, which looks like a self-balancing unicycle, but balances on a powered Omni wheel
• Inertia wheel pendulum
• Onewheel, a sort of electric skateboard with one wheel
• RIOT wheel, a ridable single-axis self-balancing unicycle with an unusually low centre of gravity, with its rider in front of, rather than on top of its single wheel
• Uno, a self-balancing dicycle

src: static.turbosquid.com

References

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Further reading

Research papers (in reverse date order)

• Wu, Junfeng; Zhang, Wanying; Wang, Shengda (26 November 2012). "A Two-Wheeled Self-Balancing Robot with the Fuzzy PD Control Method". Mathematical Problems in Engineering. 2012: 1-13. doi:10.1155/2012/469491. 
• Toma?i?, Tomislav; Demetlika, Andrea; Crnekovi?, Mladen (2012). "Self-balancing mobile robot tilter". 36 (3). Transactions of FAMENA: 23. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
• Ruan, Jian-Wei Zhao; Xiao-Gang (1 September 2011). "Modelling and Control of a Flexible Two-Wheeled Self-Balancing Mobile Robot". International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications. 3 (3): 330-355. doi:10.1504/IJSCC.2011.042438 - via ACM Digital Library. 
• Ben S. Cazzolato, David Keith Caldecott, Andrew John Edwards, Matthew Anthony Haynes, Miroslav Jerbic, Andrew Christopher Kadis and Rhys James J. Madigan Micycle - A Self-Balancing Unicycle, University of Adelaide, 2010
• Johnson, R.C. (2002). "Unicycles and bifurcations" (PDF). American Journal of Physics. 66 (7): 589-92. doi:10.1119/1.19027. 
• Zenkov, DV, AM Bloch, and JE Marsden (2001). "The Lyapunov-Malkin Theorem and Stabilization of the Unicycle with Rider". Systems and Control Letters. 45 (4): 293-302. doi:10.1016/s0167-6911(01)00187-6. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
• Zenkov, DV, AM Bloch, NE Leonard and JE Marsden (2000). "Matching and Stabilization of Low-dimensional Nonholonomic Systems" (PDF). Proc. CDC. 39: 1289-1295. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2003-06-27. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
• S. V. Ulyanov et al. (1998). "Soft computing for the intelligent robust control of a robotic unicycle with a new physical measure for mechanical controllability". Soft Computing. 2 (2): 73-88. doi:10.1007/s005000050036. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link) CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link)
• Sheng, Zaiquan; Yamafuji, Kazuo (1995). "Realization of a Human Riding a Unicycle by a Robot". Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. 2: 1319-1326. doi:10.1109/ROBOT.1995.526027. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
• A. Schoonwinkel, Design and test of a computer stabilized unicycle Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, California, 1987

Other

• Flexible two-wheeled self-balancing mobile robot, 9th IFAC Symposium on Robot Control (2009)
• MOTORIZED UNICYCLES Hackaday (July 2008)
• Balancing on one wheel scooter Hackaday (March 2007)
• MF2006: The electric unicycle April 2006
• Photo of Trevor Blackwell's electric Self-balancing Unicycle (April 2006)
• Build Your Own Self-Balancing Unicycle (January 2005)
• Reference to Trevor Blackwell's electric Self-balancing Unicycle (September 2004)
• Legality crowdsourcing forum electric unicycling (detailed legal information for a number of countries)

Source of the article : Wikipedia