Weight Sensing Controller for electric Skateboards

[treloid]

Hi people

I'm currently in the final phase of my study @ the http://www.hftm.ch.

For my finishing thesis, i'd like to create a controller for electric skateboards which works with weightsensing sensors. The goal of this is to get rid of the handheld controllers and have your hands free to grab your board or high five someone whatever I'll make an opensource project from this, so if you're interested you can build one for yourself.

Now some information:

Weightsensing Controller (looking for a short, good name for this project any good ideas ? ^^)

Hardware

-Arduino Pro Mini Micro Controller
-2 Force Sensitive Resistors (FSR)
-Piezo Beeper
-A "standard" DIY-Electric Skateboard with ESC and Brushless Motor
-(Current Sensor / Voltage Sensor)

Idea

The idea is to mount 2 FSR directly into the board. The surface which will be sensed is enlarged by a 3D Printed part.

My plan is to program 2 different modes:

Mode1: The speed is set absolute dependent to your balance on the board. This means if you lean more forward you will go faster, if you lean more backwards you will brake.

Mode2: The speed is only set relative dependet to your balance on the board. This means you lean forward till you reached your speedgoal. After this you can go back to neutral position and the speed will be hold. If you want to slow down, you make the same move in the other direction.

So this is the basic plan. When the minimal function runs properly i'll add other functions like logging current/voltage/sensormeasurment etc.


Do you have any other ideas for this project?

Keep rollin

 

[Gregory]

Sounds like a fun way to get your thesis work done.

Have you read Justins thread Weight Sensing Longboard with Inline Wheel Motors using stress sensors?

And also the GoBoard.

 

[2wayspeaker]

I really like this idea.
Make shure the implementation is on point so test early and often.
Maybe provide a calibration option where the driver can set his/her regular stance as the basemark and deviations from this basemark stance are used to accelerate/decelerate.
You also should check what happens when you step on, because usually you step on a foot at a time, that first foot on the board really shouldn't send the board doing 30mph.

Good luck, I'll definitely follow up your work on this.

 

[Vanarian]

Don't forget to amplify signals from sensors if you want your controller to read them!

Good luck we share an ideal here

 

[magiced]

Sounds interesting.

I've never used a weight controlled board. How does it react when you have to adjust your weight to compensate for acceleration, bumps, carving etc? I'd be worried about it spiralling out of control when you bump over a curb. will it avergae inputs over a period and have a slow ramp to stay controllable?

 

[CSN]

A weight shifting sensor that would adjust the esc to compensate for a shifting load.

Kind of like anti lock brakes.

The self balancing unicycles with their lean gyro is pretty interesting. Segways too.

 

[Nijsjol]

Have you thought about this:

If you go fast and you use the brake, your body automatically shiftst forward, and if that happens, you will speed up again.

the Zboard 2 uses the same system, look up some reviews, a lot of people 'complain' about the unstable feeling

 

[Hummina Shadeeba]

didn't read the posts but had to put in my two cents on it. I rode a zboard for a short moment and I realllly like the idea of having the sensors in the trucks and not the board. Even the guy who owned the zboard found it awkward.

which reminds me ...thank you Justin for this great site.

.. there's no ads here. theres nothing. it's like craigslist. I don't know how it works or if there are bills to pay. I imagine there always are. but we have no ads here. what is the agenda?

 

[treloid]

Sorry guys that it taked so long, but school was stressing me to the hell..

Thanks for all your inputs! Some of them have been already in my ideas, some are new to me So my work on this project has now officially started. 11th of september will be the finish of it. With this finish i'll put my project on Github so all you guys can use it if you want. Hope it will work well for my diploma...