Ballbot - the ultimate EUC ride

[Chris Westland]

I've been fascinated with the potential for ballbot's to serve the same function as EUC's, but with much more stability and turning flexibility.  They seem to be pretty easy to build (there are a number of designs for the hardware and control boards on the internet), and it seems the next step in 'Inverted Pendulum System' transport.  The only question would be ability to achieve speed.   The prototypes seem pretty slow but incredibly stable, even under heavy weights.  Kumagai's spherical induction motor can hit 300 rpm, which for the ball he is showing (~1m circumference) looks like ~5km/hr.   Here are some videos.

 

Kumagai's Ballbot

Kumagai's Spherical Induction Motor (the next gen ballbot rotor)

Kumagai's Alternative Rollers

Rezero

Big Ball Bot

[John Eucist]

1 hour ago, Chris Westland said:

I've been fascinated with the potential for ballbot's to serve the same function as EUC's, but with much more stability and turning flexibility.  They seem to be pretty easy to build (there are a number of designs for the hardware and control boards on the internet), and it seems the next step in 'Inverted Pendulum System' transport.  The only question would be ability to achieve speed.   The prototypes seem pretty slow but incredibly stable, even under heavy weights.  Kumagai's spherical induction motor can hit 300 rpm, which for the ball he is showing (~1m circumference) looks like ~5km/hr.   Here are some videos.

Check this thread:
 

@MaxLinux pointed out that (quote) "the 3 friction-based "driver wheels" will gradually start slipping as dirt accumulates and the rubber wears down".

@mhpr262 further dramatizes this point with (quote) "Hahahah, can you imagine the mess you will have to clean up if you run over a dog turd on the sidewalk with that thing? It will also cause the friction based drive principle to fail, because the turd will get smeared all over the surface of the ball and turn it slippery."

So this hurdle needs to be resolved before something like this can replace eucs.

[Mono]

8 hours ago, John Eucist said:

So this hurdle needs to be resolved before something like this can replace eucs.

to be honest, unless one believes this problem cannot be resolved at all (which the posts somehow seem to suggest), we don't know whether it has been resolved already or whether it actually is a big problem in practice at all.^* The prototype is shown to ride on pretty dirty and uneven terrain. In any case, I don't think that it will replace EUCs entirely, even though I indeed find it to be a quite fascinating machine, maybe as close as it will get to a "real" hoverboard.

^* The tire-surface contact of an EUC is friction based as well. On a smeared surface, or with a smeared tire, neither an EUC nor a bike can be operated safely. Accumulated dirt and tire wear on the other hand seem not to be detrimental.

[Chris Westland]

Ha ha ... I didn't think about that ... I hate sidewalk turds .   Very interesting video; makes me wish I understood German.  But spherical tires are being seriously vetted by Goodyear... I can imagine wayward turds would be that problem writ large in automotive applications.   Goodyear is envisioning magnetic levitation (with permanent magnets an integral part of the spherical tire).