New Transporter in the works
 

Am I the only one who got this e-mail?


Segway Announces Development of a Three-Wheel Personal Transportation Device for the Public Safety Market

Segway Quality, Value Priced Product will be Available in Q4 2013

Segway Inc. is pleased to announce the development of a new three-wheel personal transportation product targeted at the public safety market.

“Our customers are demanding a feature-rich, quality-made three-wheel device that is value priced. We are going to meet their needs and deliver that product by the end of this calendar year,” said Roger Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Segway Inc.

Click here to read the full news release on The Segway Blog.

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/bl...ree-wheel.html

http://blog.segway.com/20130306segwa...rket-3065.html

Anyone have any details as to what it looks like? It seems that maybe they are going after the T3 market, but I doubt that will be one wheel foward. Most likely one wheel aft. If it can jump or go over curbs it would kinda have to be one wheel aft, wouldn't it? Unless it has a arm that drops a caster wheel in front to balance or catch it when one quickly dismounts to catch a perp, suspect. Kinda like the Bam third wheel that everyone laughed at years ago.

Perhaps it's a three wheeled Centaur. You know one front wheel that drops forward when they want to go faster.

Nope...came through to me too. General email shot I think.

Some discussion on this already happening in the news forum.

http://forums.segwaychat.org/showthread.php?p=228653

no i got the same email

Me too... :)

-Alan

a new transporter
 

I'm thinking of some kind of a three wheel version of the "Concept Centaur".

But, at what price?

be safe,
enjoy your glide...

Bob Yarbrough
the PONY SEAT guy

Blog postings are saying in the neighborhood of $ 7500.00.

That sounds feasible, if the third wheel comes down behind at slow speeds for added stability and acts like a caster or outrigger to allow normal lean steer steering of the main wheels.


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Daniel Swanson

A three wheel version of the Concept Centaur would put the word fun in three wheel fun mobility scooter! Fun, fast, and maneuverable would be attractive to a large market segment needing the stability and a seat.

I'm thinking of some kind of a three wheel version of the "Controllable Launcher". ;)

I'll point out that with a suitable suspension, it's possible to make a 3-wheeled device self-balancing as well. I have no idea if this is what Segway is doing. But you don't have to raise and lower the third wheel to get self-balancing. In fact, that would be somewhat tricky because you'd have to also shift the center of gravity to be somewhere to the rear of the front wheels, right as it got to the ground.

Yeah, that makes sense. In any case, though, it seems to me that the third wheel would want to be an outrigger in the rear and a "caster" so as not to conflict with the Segway leansteer mechanism.


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Daniel Swanson

Leaving aside issues of cost and power, having it actively steered instead of castoring would give better control.

How much better, I don't know, but I suspect it might be substantial in bad conditions (very rough surface and rapid maneuvering).

I have to disagree with you on these last points of yours.

Three points of support for a *static* system is obviously the most stable. But in the case of the *dynamic* system of a three-wheeled transporter, there will be many lateral forces pushing the device over onto only two of the three wheels. If the rear wheel is used for steering, what happens to control when it gets pushed up into the air? Or what happens to steering control if one of the other wheels gets pushed up?

No, I'd say Segway wouldn't want to throw out the baby with the bath water and all of a sudden not incorporate its magical dynamic balancing system with at 3-wheeled transporter--in a similar way to the way it was kept with the Centaur. That's why I'm guessing that a third wheel would answer the need for greater stability for when the machine was traveling very slowly or stopped, in which case, it should "caster" and follow along with its two big brothers which have been doing all the Segway-style heavy lifting of propulsion and steering.

Doesn't the "Q" scooter, and the "Rad-to-Go" have steering casters at the rear of the platform? I believe that the brakes are also on these smaller, rear mounted wheels.

I believe that the stance, maneuverability, and surely stability of those device are all far below the standards set by segway...

By stance, I mean the stability of simply being still, with a rider on the platform, on a slope. Surely, braking facing down on a slope is an adventure with this technology.

I can see how a caster, similar to those on a PUMA can be incorporated, yet not be part of the propulsion system.

There I go... I said I was not going to try and speculate, and now I am. I really do want to try not to...

Bringing an open model P.U.M.A. Concept with mods into production or at least using the PUMA platform is logical speculation. The Mini PUMA. Hopefully, it will be a short speculation period and Segway releases a photo along with specifications soon.

That's OK, Karl. So far, this conversation has been quite even-handed and calm. I for one don't like to speculate, either. When I first heard about leansteer I was put off by my own assumption that foot pressure sensing would be the input for steering rather than the pivoting of the LSF.

With reference to a 3-wheel transporter, I'm trying to conceive of how Segway won't make another T3 with its inherent instability from a front-oriented steering wheel. It also "pains" me to see those T3s on "fail" videos tipping over like so many of us did on our own tricycles (and even Big Wheels which succeeded them) we had as kids.

The BHP Can-Am is a trike with two up front and a single drive wheel in the rear, which seems to be pretty stable. I test drove one and, though different, doesn't seem unstable at all.

But a Segway-esque 3-wheel transporter would have a very narrow stance with a substantial moment of inertia wanting to tip transporter and driver over. The 2-wheel PT we know handles this with dynamic balancing quite nicely. So why throw out that very workable system for the sake of three wheels? I say they'd want to *supplement* it with a third wheel serving a relatively minor role of slow speed/stopped stability, and would therefore want to be not much more than a caster/outrigger.

It could also "caster" and not get in the way when the machine was self- balancing going down a steep grade.

anotherstyle of threewheel transporter
 

This video appears to be in line with this thread.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWgiEKqhy3A


be safe
enjoy your glide

Bob Yarbrough
the PONY SEAT guy

I find that far too often, people who don't really know anything about a topic still hold strong opinions. Personally, I think it is wise to leave engineering to engineers. They can be pretty knowledgeably about things like three-point vs two-point stability, and understand why a Bombardier Can-Am is as stable as it is.

I also wonder about those folks who have repeatedly written on SC that self-balancing two-wheelers are the wave of the future, that the existing I2 / X2 is pretty much perfect, and who reacted negatively when others started conjecturing (in the past) about possible features for an I3. How does one improve on perfection? Will Dean Kamen purists react negatively if the new Seg is a variation on a T3?

Important Questions: Does Segway now have a marketing department? Did they do the appropriate market research? Are they now the force in the company that is driving the development of this product? What market is the new Seg intended to serve. What is the size of that market, and how does the new product compare to the competition in that market?

I am really hoping that three-wheeled thingie is part of a range of new products, which would include a smaller, lighter, lower-cost two-wheeled I3 with NiMH batteries.

interesting video Bob. I did not understand what he was saying, however.

I did not see it move much. I did see a small wheel under the foot bar, making 3 that I noticed. I wonder about it's drive/stop characteristics.

I also noticed a track driven snow board (I am guessing it was a snow board or snow shoe of some sort.) I would have enjoyed it more if I understood his comments. Did anyone else have this problem?

Kind of reminds me of that orange motorcycle that looked to have one wheel, but actually had two right next to each other in the center. Lots of video, lots of speculation, very little video of it actually working. Looked cool however.

yeah..I know. By the end of the video I was disappointed enough from their lack of action of leaning. Maybe they only know how to sit on a Segway wnnabe but have not learned how to glide yet, <grin>. I did find the addition of the caster type
wheels and design interesting enough to post.

be safe
enjoy your glide...

Bob Yarbrough
the PONY SEAT guy

Thanks, Bob. That is sort of what I've been talking about with a third wheel being a caster or outrigger.

It's SE Asia, most likely Thailand. Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia languages sound much more "sing-song". I think I've seen the script before as Thai, too.

You misunderstand. I didn't say the third wheel would be used for steering. I said it would be actively steered, so it is pointing the correct way, consistent with the differential drive of the drive wheels. Thus it would reinforce, not subtract from, the steering. So, for example, if one of the drive wheels loses traction, the third wheel would contribute steering force, not provide force in whatever direction it was castored at the moment, which might have been due to a bump or something.

Perhaps the way to think of it is active castoring, rather than relying on drag from an offset pivot.

Or like coordinating the tail of an aircraft during a turn.

How would having a third wheel help in stability in faster speed if you lean forward to go faster, which would lift up the rear wheel off the ground. Then it would serve no purpose. The HT, I2, X2 has great stability in slow speeds. Therefore the third wheel would have to be used in front for stability in faster speeds. If they are wanting to go after T3's share of the Police or Security market they would need the Segway to go faster than it does. So thats why I'm thinking it has to be a drop down wheel in the front, perhaps gravity feed, pendilum style. It would also have to be a castor type wheel that turns beacaus the turning as it is is controlled by increasing or decreasing the speed of one wheel. It will most likely fall forward at a certain rate of speed with a horizontal stabilizer that would lock in down. Probably with a curvature in it. Thats my thinking on it. I also think it will be called an I3.

Oh, it may be quite possible the base will slide in a forward curve upward so that when it speeds up your center of gravity will slide forward on the base as the Segway's base tilts forward. Just a guess.

Stability in my opinion relates to the Seg in shut down mode or stopped position allowing for solid 3 point parking, safety in an emergency shutdown mode, and a stabile machine when mounting or dismounting. Ideal for equipment laden patrol officers and wannabe Segway owners with balance issues.

I believe this would work in a plane or a boat, but not so much in a device that has hard contact with the ground.

With a boat or plane, you can 'skid' at an angle, or fly (or drive) with the nose pointing one way, and the vehicle going a slightly different way.

It is easy to illustrate this, but hard to describe it. If you are in a plane, and you are facing north, and want to fly north, but there is a strong wind from the west, you will not actually go north, but north and east. If you point the nose of the plane a bit to the west, so you are pointing pretty much north west, you will then travel north, if seen from the ground.

This is one of the reasons you can steer a plane both with the rudder on the tail, and by tilting the plane a bit, (wing over wing) and other things. It is because you are not in hard contact.

When a plane lands, and transitions from being in the air to being on the wheels, there is a distinct difference in how the machine moves in a cross wind.

The easiest way to illustrate this with words that I can think of for a wheeled vehicle would be to have people think of a car that is drifting around a corner. In that circumstance, the car may be pointing one direction, and moving another direction, and still under relative control. (Unlike a skid on ice, where the same may be happening, but not under nearly as much control) If there is some sort of steering assistance from a 3rd wheel either fore or aft, or active steering coordination, you would also have to have some sort of differential on all the wheels, in the way that all wheel drive vehicles have a differential for each wheel. Can a segway still function as we know it does with a differential on the drive wheels?

If you incorporate 3 wheels into the segway situation, then you need to consider what happens when one or more wheels looses traction, or starts to 'drift'. Currently, as segway cannot drift with perhaps one notable Italian exception. And even then, only under very particular situations, not under normal driving situations.

We all know what happens now, when one wheel looses traction. It is not particularly pretty.

Anyone who has seen a T3 take a hard turn at speed will realize that momentum will often cause the inside rear wheel to lift. This makes for an unstable situation.

Most single front wheel trikes of any sort have stability problems in high speed hard turns.

There are some that have vertical movement and active suspension for all the wheels, to compensate for this. But that would require a totally different machine to what we call a segway.

I do wonder. There are lots of possibilities.

This is the concept that I presented with the PUMA. It has many wheels, but all but two are not used for motivation, and are used for crash avoidance (only come in contact if leaning too far, and out of operating envelope) or for parking, and mounting.

You could add this to a segway without a total and complete redesign. I do not believe you can add some of the other concepts and still have a segway or something we would recognize as one.

I wouldn't suggest or even imply changing the Segway as we know it unless Segway Inc. and purists feel minor design or engineering changes make it better from a performance perspective and ultimately enhancing the glide. I would 'speculate' a machine to compete with the T3 to be a totally different class of Segway.

Agree. Segway has shown with their robotic platforms that they are not completely married to the idea that all their offerings have to use dynamic stabilization. 2, 3 (with castors) and 4 wheel RMP configurations are available.
If the public safety market wants T3-like transporters, Segway is probably capable of offering something similar but better.

Sigh. I can't think of a really good way to explain this without animations, and even then it might seem like magic. But here goes anyway...

You're thinking of things as if the platform and the three wheels were rigidly connected.

But that does not have to be the case. They can be linked so that the load is always shared between front and back wheels, with the center of gravity always "above" (relative to net acceleration) a point between front and back wheels. This is really no different from what the Segway does now, except (a) instead of balancing over the axle, it would involve balancing over an arbitrary point between axles, and (b) instead of rigidly connecting to the axles, at least one of front or back would need to be a non-rigid connection. (This non-rigid connection could be active or passive).

Remember, there's a computer on board. There is no need to rely on castoring to align the third wheel in the proper direction. You can compute the correct position based on the turn rate, and force the third wheel into that position with a servomoter.

Have you ever driven a shopping cart with a wheel that didn't quite make full contact, but kept wobbling back and forth?

You really do NOT want that.

The point that seems to be being disregarded in this thread is the significant benefit and importance of the current Segway PT dynamic balancing system. Its benefits are:

1. Zero turning radius when needed
2. Combined acceleration/braking/steering control
3. Dynamic balancing over two side-by-side wheels
4. Smallest possible footprint

The T3, for example, has NONE of these attributes which results in its being significantly more awkward to handle:

1. >0 turning radius
2. Separate controls for acceleration/braking/steering
3. NO dynamic balancing which results in a MUCH less stable machine, especially when climbing and descending hills. I really wouldn't want to make a hard turn coming down a steep hill at speed, for example.
4. Larger footprint than a Segway PT

If Segway scraps any of the PT's attributes for the sake of a third wheel, they'd be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Soooo, why and how would they add a third wheel sensibly?

I'm guessing a third wheel would serve to provide stability for when the machine is operating very slowly or when it is stopped or parked.

Why else would it be needed?

This is why I think it should be in back and be a caster so that it could simply caster to follow the two main wheels. It would be on an arm or hinge which would lift it up once the machine went above a certain slow speed so that Segway-style dynamic balancing could be actuated for the two main wheels.

One distinct advantage of the existing PTs is their stability fore and aft while ascending and descending hills. The driver remains vertical and the platform remains essentially level.

This is not the case for the T3. It would also tend to accelerate going down hill where the PT doesn't.

The system I'm talking about would not give up any dynamic balancing. The platform would still dynamically balance. I quite agree with you about the benefits of a self-balancing system. I don't think you have to give up any of them.

And I can't tell, thanks to there being no clear terminology, if you've gotten my point about the third wheel and dynamic vs active castoring. IMO, it should NOT just "follow along", but should be electrically placed in the position it SHOULD be if castoring worked ideally. Which it doesn't.

My apologies if I'm getting redundant here. I can't tell if I'm making a muck of the explanation, or not.

Remember the SegTrax? That balances the platform, with an entire tank tread on each side. More dramatic a difference than a 3rd wheel.

Now consider a triangular frame connecting the three wheels.

Now attach two pivots to that frame, above the triangle, between front and back, at the level of the Segway's wheel axles.

Now, drive the wheels forward and back to keep the platform level. Now you *almost* have a Segway.

The one difference is that when you drive the wheels of a Segway forward to catch up with the platform, the torque you apply to the wheels also tends to tip the platform back. So we either have to be more aggressive about accelerating the platform, or apply a torque back to the platform. Springs would be one possibility, so would an active system with a servomotor.

Bottom line, Segway doesn't have to give up any "Segwayness" by adding a third wheel -- except the part about it falling over if you turn it off. Balancing a platform does not require exactly two wheels -- but two wheels requires balancing.

Anyway, I think I've run out of ways to explain it. I hope at least one makes sense to people.

One thing you probably DO lose with 3 wheels -- turning radius. You can turn around the midpoint of the two wheels. But if the third wheel is further away from that point than the current rear corner of the platform (which seems likely) you'll need a bit more room to turn than presently. It would sure beat the T3 though!

Despite all the supposed advantages of the dynamically stabilized 2 wheeler and the supposed disadvantages of the non-dynamically stabilized 3 wheeler, the T3 fits the needs of a segment of the public safety market, drawing off sales from Segway Inc. If there are customers that want a 3 wheeler, its in Segway's best interest to offer one.

"Segway Director of Global Police and Government Business Chip MacDonald said the new vehicle is not a replacement for the company’s current line of two-wheel public safety patrollers, but a natural extension of it that’s designed to fulfill additional roles in a market the company created."

Segway might be better off giving the public safety market what they want rather than offering them only what current EPAMD enthusiasts want.

I quite agree. My point is, they can, in theory at least, do it better and safer by including dynamic stability.

In practice, you come into questions of cost. I *think* self-balancing 3-wheeled could be done around their price point, but that's a lot harder to evaluate sitting here.

I think it would be cool if it stood up on two wheels when you started moving. Going down a curb would be much easier if you are balanced on two wheels.

Slow down and it rocks down on three wheels. It will be interesting.

I'm not an engineer and not qualified to do any technical speculation. But I've said from the first time I was on one that it needed retractable landing gear. The stand is fragile simply because if it was stiff it could/would catch when you start up and cause big trouble.

I am not a fan of 3-wheeled devices unless they can deal with the potential for tipping inherent with a front third wheel. I'd rather see it be the "landing gear" concept for stability when not moving. The fact that it is being designed for police/security work makes me suspect that whatever is included will allow an officer to step off and let the Seg wait for his return.

We shall see! Patience!