Part rollercoaster, part futuristic transportation, Edward, or Electric Diwheel With Active Rotation Damping, is an engineering project with the potential to make it to the streets someday. And the best part is that Edward is entirely electric. Engineering students at Adelaide University have been building, programming and testing Edward over the past three years.
Edward is able to maintain safe, fluid-like balance with the help of dynamic stability and slosh control.
Creating a new vehicle like Edward isn't as easy as plugging a battery into an electric motor. For Edward to be safe enough for a human operator, the students performed trial-and-error programming in order to tweak Edward's movements. Without such controls, Edward's operator would easily tumble in more aggressive stop and go maneuvers, something they call "gerbiling". The optimized setup allows Edward to run at speeds of up to 25 mph, even with the operator held upside-down.
Check out the video below to see just how fun Edward is.
[Source: Adelaide.edu VIA Hackaday]
Creating a new vehicle like Edward isn't as easy as plugging a battery into an electric motor. For Edward to be safe enough for a human operator, the students performed trial-and-error programming in order to tweak Edward's movements. Without such controls, Edward's operator would easily tumble in more aggressive stop and go maneuvers, something they call "gerbiling". The optimized setup allows Edward to run at speeds of up to 25 mph, even with the operator held upside-down.
Check out the video below to see just how fun Edward is.
[Source: Adelaide.edu VIA Hackaday]
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