An Arduino controls this unusual two-wheel steering e-bike

James Bruton likes to experiment with uncommon automobile drive methods and configurations to learn the way they carry out underneath the dynamic circumstances of real-world use. Inner combustion engines and driveshafts don’t have a tendency to slot in these automobiles, so Bruton typically makes use of electrical motors. He often turns to Arduino to regulate the motors and browse the sensors in his contraptions. That is still true for his latest venture: a wierd two-wheel steering e-bike.

Think about a bicycle, however with a rear wheel that additionally steers, and also you’ve received a reasonably good thought of the idea. However it will be actually laborious to steer each wheels on the similar time, so Bruton got here up with a novel management scheme. The entrance wheel has free steering, like a typical bicycle. The again wheel has energetic motor-driven steering. An encoder screens the angle of the entrance steering so the again steering can rotate in response. There are three modes: one which locks the rear wheel to imitate a normal bike, one which matches the rear steering to the entrance, and one which mirrors the rear steering relative to the entrance.

An Arduino Uno board handles all of those features. Each the entrance and rear wheels have hub motors, and the rear wheel has an energetic steering motor. The Arduino controls these by ESC (digital pace controller) modules. It spins the 2 hub motors in line with a sign coming from a normal e-bike throttle on the handlebars. Energy comes from a LiPo battery pack. Bruton constructed the bike’s body utilizing a mix of metal tube and 3D-printed plastic elements, with heavy responsibility bearings for the steerer tubes and common bicycle saddle to take a seat on.

Bruton experiences that this configuration handles fairly poorly and it most likely isn’t one thing you’d need to construct. However that’s okay, as a result of that is simply one other experimental automobile in Bruton’s storage and we’re all the time completely satisfied to see these.