Bike-sharing programs such as Citibike and Ford Gobike require rebalancing operations that are highly manual-intensive and costly. The team designed self-driving E-bikes that can automatically balance themselves, decreasing the operating cost of bike-sharing programs.
Team: Min Kim, Robert Ou, Ivan Xia
Advisor: Prof. Seth Sanders
Self-driving bikes can make bike-sharing program more efficient. Bikes can be balanced by controlling the steering and speed.
- Bike-sharing programs require constant rebalancing operations due to the bike imbalance occurring during normal usage.
- Rebalancing operations are labor-intensive, and thus expensive (50+% of total operating cost)
- By making the bikes load themselves on to the truck automatically, the rebalancing operations can be done much faster and more efficient.
Prototype Build:
- Small-scale model was built with Lego Mindstorm kit to confirm the controllability of the system.
- Full-size prototype was built with a commercial e-bike to demonstrate the real-world performance.
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