Abstract
In this paper, we propose a self-balancing personal mobility vehicle with a hybrid driving mechanism, called as Wi-PMP, and discuss its features from the perspectives of its power-assist driving performance and a rider's evaluation. The mobility vehicle consists of a wheeled inverted pendulum type mobile platform, and a hybrid driving mechanism that can use human and motor power together for driving. By performing a bump driving, a slope driving, and a outdoor driving experiment, we confirm that the proposed hybrid mechanism is valid for the integration of human and motor power, and is effective to increase the driving power and reduce electrical load on motors and batteries. We conducted several experiments to investigate the rider's evaluation on a sit-riding method compared to a stand-riding one. The questionnaire results showed that a rider felt more comfortable in the case of the sit-riding method when getting on and off, and when driving the mobility vehicle. This implies that riding-type self-balancing vehicles such as Wi-PMP have the potential to become familiar personal mobility vehicles in daily life.
Highlights
1.1 BackgroundWith the increased focus on the ongoing energy crisis and environmental pollution, personal mobility vehicles are considered as potential alternatives for personal transpor‐ tation over short distances [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The questionnaire results showed that a rider felt more comfortable in the case of the sit-riding method when getting on and off, and when driving the mobility vehicle. This implies that riding-type self-balanc‐ ing vehicles such as wheeled inverted pendulum-type personal mobility (Wi-PMP) have the potential to become familiar personal mobility vehicles in daily life
A rider's mental and physical load may be reduced compared to a sit-riding-type selfbalancing personal mobility vehicle (PMV), since they sit on a saddle when operating it
Summary
With the increased focus on the ongoing energy crisis and environmental pollution, personal mobility vehicles are considered as potential alternatives for personal transpor‐ tation over short distances [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. The problems of power limitation due to the dependency on electric energy will still remain These problems become more serious when self-balancing PMVs are driven for long distances where many uphill slopes and bumps exist, which inevitably requires power‐ ful electric motors. To solve this problem, a self-balancing PMV with a pedal mechanism was experimentally proposed to use human power during driving [13]. A rider's mental and physical load may be reduced compared to a sit-riding-type selfbalancing PMV, since they sit on a saddle when operating it These advantages were not been confirmed in detail in the study, which are important points for such PMVs that would enable its widespread introduction into daily human life
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