Technology
The dynamics of the Segway PT are similar to a classic control problem, the inverted pendulum. The Segway PT (PT is an initialism for personal transporter while the old suffix HT was an initialism for human transporter) has electric motors powered by Valence Technology phosphate-based lithium-ion batteries which can be charged from household current. It balances with the help of dual computers running proprietary software, two tilt sensors, and five gyroscopic sensors developed by BAE Systems' Advanced Technology Centre. The servo drive motors rotate the wheels forwards or backwards as needed for balance or propulsion. The rider controls forward and backward movement by leaning the Segway relative to the combined center of mass of the rider and Segway, by holding the control bar closer to or farther from their body. The Segway detects the change in the balance point, and adjusts the speed at which it is balancing the rider accordingly. On older models, steering is controlled by a twist grip on the left handlebar, which simply varies the speeds between the two motors, rotating the Segway PT (a decrease in the speed of the left wheel would turn the Segway PT to the left). Newer models enable the use of tilting the handle bar to steer.
Read more about this topic: Segway PT
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they’ll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The successor to politics will be propaganda. Propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but as the impact of the whole technology of the times.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)