Bikes have long been a greener (and cheaper) alternative to cars, assuming you actually know how to ride one, but one. talented chinese engineer remove this requirement from the equation with a self-balancing electric bike it’s smart enough to move around a city on its own.

In its current form, the bike screams “research project” with electric motors and steering wheels mounted under its seat, electronics and a battery attached to the top tube, and a servo system used to spin the front wheel. . It’s not pretty, but at the same time watching it in action is fascinating because everything our brains know about bikes tells us that seeing one ride down the street without a cyclist should be impossible. What’s more impressive is that the improved capabilities of the bike come from a single hardware engineer named Zhi Hui Jun who carried out the project in his spare time.

Self-balancing action is achieved by a perpendicular mounted heavy metal wheel that can quickly change the direction of its rotation to create angular momentum to counter the tendency of the bike to immediately succumb to the forces of gravity and fall. It is controlled by accelerometer and gyroscope sensors which can detect the most subtle movements of the bike, and as a result, when self-balancing, the bike appears to be rock solid as the constant small adjustments made are almost imperceptible.

The mechanism should work whether or not there is a rider in the saddle, but While he can keep the bike itself upright even at a complete stop, with someone on board, which adds a lot of weight, he may require extra forward momentum to help pull his tricks out. ‘balancing. This could very well mean that one day the rite of passage of learning to ride a bike as a child could no longer be, which would also make cycling more accessible to cyclists of all skill levels.

There is another interesting application to this creation, which may already be apparent to anyone who lives in a big city and regularly must dodge bicycle couriers who skillfully weave their way through congested traffic to deliver packages quickly. As part of the upgrade, Zhi Hui Jun also added an RGB depth sensing camera and LIDAR sensor that not only allows him to ride alone. but also intelligently avoid obstacles and navigate traffic. The bicycle could easily replace the cars used by services like Uber Eats for small orders, and would potentially never be delayed by heavy traffic or closed roads. It could squeeze through pile-ups and even take advantage of shortcuts cars could never use to reduce delivery times, while reducing emissions.