Project Summary

Forzuna are developing a novel dynamic stability control system for personal-mobility vehicles, enabling riders to safely enjoy urban, and off-road journeys, with effortless control. A new vehicle-format, which began as an accessibility necessity, evolved into a way for people of all abilities, to experience ‘mobility virtuosity’, a magical feeling, that highly-skilled equestrians, skateboarders and motorcyclists have been enjoying for decades.

Project Achievements

Project focus We focused on constructing a very light, but rigid suspension system that holds two precise magnetic sensors that monitor the relative positions of the left and right suspension arms. This required high tolerances, to not allow any torsional flex, keeping the sensor-readings smooth enough to interpret at a high bitrate/frequency. Main achievements We designed a suspension axle/bearing/arm and sensor-mount assembly which required minimal custom-engineered parts. This came-in on-budget and schedule, despite having a large number of small precision-machined parts from several different suppliers. Highlights The assembly fitted-together perfectly, and is extremely stable/smooth to operate (easy to dismantle/reassemble with different stiffness of suspension/damping). The electronics – engineering was bench-tested while the machining/fabrication work was managed, this test-work translated easily to the finished components.

Conclusions

This is the second grant-funded module of our vehicle project, we’re happy to say that the team’s experience in project-management, and the professionalism of our subcontractors are working very well so-far. The outputs show the Dynamic-Stability-Control is a viable addition to this convenient vehicle’s feature-set, making, what was a very unpredictably- behaved (Segway) motion-algorithm, into something which can be rolled-out to wide consumer-market. There is still work to be done, tuning the DSC to the traction and torque delivery of the hub-motors, we hope to make ‘safety level’ a preference- adjustable feature for the rider to adjust to suit their requirements.

Next Steps

The TRIG programme module has been an immense benefit to the vehicle project. The stability and safety of the self-balance platform was the only thing keeping it from being the huge commercial success, and benefit to zero-emissions travel, that the original investors in Segway Inc, hoped it would be. We’re now able to add a new level of Accessibility to this agile transport-format, while keeping it affordable. We’re still trying for a Smart-Grant to fund the ultra-efficient new motors, that would enable this vehicle and its cargo-carrying variant, to be used in many more industry-sectors. We hope that the UKRI‘Design Foundations’ grant will enable us to publicly test the vehicle with a wider audience (while protecting the IP best aswe can), to prove its Mk1 prototype’s initial popularity translates to many other demographics and use-cases. The multi-£Bn FarEast, last-mile-delivery market needs to be exploited while we have 1st-to-market advantage.