Harley-Davidson, Project Livewire: First electric motorbike revealed

There are plenty of small and innovative startups working on producing the perfect electric motorcycle, but now one of the biggest companies in the world has got involved in the technology.

Harley-Davidson this week unveiled Project Livewire, in which the firm's first electric-powered bike will be touring the States along the historic Route 66.

The idea behind the tour is to give bikers a chance to test out Livewire and give feedback on its development.

The prototypes that Harley-Davidson has worked on will be modified and refined based on suggestions from the public, if there's enough interest in the vehicle, then a production model may not be too far away.

While Harley-Davidson is better known for rumbling engines and bulky designs, the new creation is surprisingly light and slim.

It can reach 60mph in less than four seconds, has a top speed of 92mph and boasts 74 horsepower and 52 foot-pounds of torque.

Harley-Davidson executives are reluctant to talk specifications right now, though, and would prefer riders to give Livewire a test drive rather than compare it against existing bikes.

The tour, which involves around a dozen prototypes, starts in New York and will also hit Europe sometime during 2015.

'Any business has always got to look ahead to see where customers are interested in going, and see where society might be going,' chief marketing officer Mark-Hans Richer told reporters.

At the moment we don't know much about the internal components of the Livewire, but Harley-Davidson is claiming the bike has a range of 53 miles and a battery that charges in 3.5 hours.

That would put the power pack somewhere in the 113kg (or 250lbs) range, so the bike's designers will have had to work hard to cut down on the size and the weight of other sections.

If you check out the teaser trailer released by Harley-Davidson you'll notice there's not quite the same trademark roar from the engines, the Livewire has been built to work very quietly and efficiently, even if it's not quite as powerful as the rest of the company's current line-up.

The full promotional video provides a look at a Livewire being taken through its paces by a test driver on a closed circuit.

Developing a better motor for the Mars Rover

Elias Brassitos, a doctoral candidate in Distinguished Professor Dinos Mavroidis' Biomedical Mechatronics Laboratory, is developing a rotary robotic actuator that produces more power in a lighter package for a manipulator arm on NASA's Mars Rover. 

Credit: Brooks Canaday

In the world of robotics, identifying actuators that are strong and compact is probably one of the most important open technological problems yet to be resolved.

More often than not, the mechanical elements that translate data into doing are big, rough, and generally unfriendly for use in everyday robotics, said Dinos Mavroidis, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University.

In the mid-2000s, Mavroidis' lab set out to develop a new kind of actuator—small enough to sit inside the joints of prosthetic limbs, but powerful enough for everyday tasks such as lifting and walking.

Backed by two new grants—one from the National Science Foundation, the other from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—Mavroidis' team will work to tailor the technology for use in advanced space applications as well as everyday household robots.

The gear bearing drive, or GBD, as the team's unique actuator is called, consists of a motor embedded directly inside the gear transmission, allowing for cheaper, lighter, and stronger functioning. The GBD is a compact mechanism with two key abilities.

It operates as an actuator providing torque and as a joint providing support. Back in 2006, Mavroidis and then graduate student Brian Weinberg developed the idea in collaboration with John Vranish, a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center engineer.

Elias Brassitos, a doctoral candidate in Mavroidis' lab, will use funding from a Space Technology Research Fellowship to develop the GBD for use on the Mars Rover.

"For space applications, everything needs to be lighter and stronger," said Brassitos, who noted that the device would replace the entire joint assembly for the rover's manipulator, the arm that extends outside the vehicle to collect rock samples and other things

"Mobile Robotics, particularly the use of rovers as part of a wider NASA exploration strategy, puts pressures on actuation technology," said Brett Kennedy, supervisor of the Robotic Vehicles and Manipulators Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"We are always looking for ways to pack more torque, more power, and more functions into smaller packages," added Kennedy, who has high hopes that the GBD will help them do just that.

First, Brassitos must design various GBD architectures, each of which might be good for different applications. He'll design and build a prototype at Northeastern, and then assemble and test the device at the JPL.

While Brassitos works to develop the GBD for space, another graduate student will work to "commercialize it for earth."

In collaboration with the startup company Foodinie, which aims to make robots for the modern household kitchen, doctoral candidate Andy Kong and Mavroidis are developing an off-the-shelf version of the gear bearing drive that inventors can use for a variety of applications.

In some cases, the team will develop it for specialized needs as in the case of the Mars rover.

"There is a possibility for the GBD to be a source for innovation in the area of compact actuators for robotic systems," Mavroidis said.

Personalised Tron Lightcycle up for auction

If you are impressed with the All-Electric Lightcycle, you now have the chance to get one in their garage, and help the environment.

The opportunity comes courtesy of Charitybuzz, which is auctioning off a replica Lightcycle, otherwise known as a Xenon Light Motor Bike.

The vehicle on offer was designed by Parker Brother Choppers and donated by Evolve Motorcycles, which created a custom lithium ion battery system to power the bike's electric motor. The bike features a handcrafted fiberglass frame and 32-inch hub-less wheels offset by OLED light tape.

Although the auction listing cites a range of 100 miles and a top speed of 50 mph (80 km/h) for the bike, it also says the winning bidder will be able to choose the bike's battery and motor type.

The personalization options will also extend to the bike's light tape colour.

Evolve sells the bike for US$55,000 and as of publication the bidding stands at $24,000, so you might just be able to nab a bargain. The auction closes on March 14, 2012 with all proceeds benefiting Global Green USA.

Source: Charitybuzz

The Air Powered Motorcycle: O2-Pursuit

 

Last month industrial designer Dean Benstead unveiled the 02 Pursuit — a prototype for a motorcycle fueled not by gas or electricity, but by compressed air.

Based on the geometry of a 250cc motocrosser, the O2 Pursuit prototype uses the breakthrough engine technology developed by Angelo Di Pietro of Engineair.

Benstead, a recent graduate of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), has harnessed the power that exists in the air tanks to mechanically drive the vehicle.

According to Benstead, testing of the motorcycle showed close to a quarter of an hour running time with stops at around 25-45 km/h. 

During stationary testing, Benstead’s team timed the speed off the back wheel, registering over 100 km/h. 

Preliminary testing of the prototype was limited to an indoors factory environment on a circular track.

“The bike is running a standard scuba tank which runs air compressed up to 200 bar, with further developments, we would be looking at running a tank at 400 bar with increased capacity to also increase the range,” he said.

The innovation was the result of Benstead’s final-year design research into the future of motorcycles, looking at air as a genuine alternative to petrol and electricity.

“Air was the starting point back in 2010, but I continued to explore this for the prototype because of its low-tech nature,” Benstead said. 

“A solar panel and a compressor now becomes your refinery and without huge battery packs to dispose of, we now have a low-cost to free powered bike with minimum impact on the environment.”

The project began mid last year at the RMIT Ecomoto, the only motorcycle-specific design studio in Australia. 

Led by RMIT Lecturer and Acting Program Director Simon Curtis, Benstead’s super motard bike project won him the Product Design – Automotive and Transport award at the 2010 Melbourne Design Awards.

The air engine developed by Engineair is still yet to be commercialized. The motor used in the 02 Pursuit was one of five prototypes in the world.

Benstead, recently named in Melbourne’s Top 100 most influential people, is currently working with Australia’s Engineair on a new design that can bring the technology to the market.

02 Pursuit specs:

• Top Speed: >100 km/h
• Weight: <100kg
• Engine: ‘Di Pietro’ 9 chamber air engine
• Engine Weight: 10kg
• Material: Aluminium
• Development: Melbourne

How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 with Motor Neuron Disease

Stephen Hawking turns 70 on Sunday, beating the odds of a daunting diagnosis by nearly half a century.

The famous theoretical physicist has helped to bring his ideas about black holes and quantum gravity to a broad public audience.

For much of his time in the public eye, though, he has been confined to a wheelchair by a form of the motor-neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Since 1985 he has had to speak through his trademark computer system—which he operates with his cheek—and have around-the-clock care.

But his disease seems hardly to have slowed him down. Hawking spent 30 years as a full professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. And he is currently the director of research at the school's Center for Theoretical Cosmology.

Like his mind, Hawking's illness seems to be almost unique. Most patients with ALS—also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, from a famous US baseball player who succumbed to the disease, are diagnosed after the age of 50 and die within five years of their diagnosis.

Hawking's condition was first diagnosed when he was 21, and he was not expected to see his 25th birthday.

Why has Hawking lived so long with this malady when so many other people die so soon after diagnosis?

We spoke with Leo McCluskey, an associate professor of neurology and medical director of the ALS Center at the University of Pennsylvania, to find out more about the disease and why it has spared Hawking and his amazing brain.

Read more of this article and interview: How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 with ALS?

Sam Blackburn: The voice behind Stephen Hawking at 70

Sam Blackburn has been Hawking’s technician since 2006. And for these 5 years, he’s the one responsible for the technology that has allowed Hawking to communicate through a computer and a voice synthesizer by twitching his cheek.

When he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (or ALS) at 21, physicist Stephen Hawking was only expected to live a few years. He turns 70 this week.

Since about 1986, he’s had to use a menu controlled by a computer system to speak. A computer highlights cells in a big grid of letters or words, and when the correct one is highlighted, he presses a switch.

But when he became unable to move his hands sufficiently, he moved to an infrared system mounted on his glasses, which detects movement in his cheek muscle. His facial muscles are the only ones he can control reasonably well.

When Blackburn first started, the system was breaking all the time. “I’d get calls at 1 o’clock in the morning saying ‘Stephen can’t speak, what do we do?’” he says. “So I needed to modernize the system.”

He did so incrementally, so the learning wouldn’t be too steep. “Stephen wouldn’t be able to ask for help because the very thing he wouldn’t be able to use would be the speech system,” he says. “Understandably that has made him very reluctant to upgrade.”

The only copy of Hawking’s hardware voice synthesizer is contained in a little gray box in Blackburn’s office. The card inside dates back to the 80s, and this particular one contains Hawking’s voice. There’s a processor on it that has a unique program that turns text into speech that sounds like Hawking’s, and they have only two of these cards.

The company that made them went bankrupt and nobody knows how it works any more. Blackburn is trying to reverse engineer it since they can’t just update the system with a new synthesizer.

“The voice is one of the unique things that defines Stephen in my opinion,” he explains. “He could easily change to a voice that was clearer, perhaps more soothing to listen to – less robotic sounding – but it wouldn’t be Stephen’s voice any more.”

However, Hawking’s progressive nerve decay means that his ability to control his cheek muscle is fading.

His rate of speech is down to about one word per minute. And while Blackburn’s been making slight advances in the current technology, they’re gonna have to move on to something new – like eye-tracking or brain scanning systems.

The challenge for Blackburn’s successor: to keep that well-known voice in working order.

Ridekick provides an electric boost to regular bicycles

Although some cycling purists may sneer at them, electric bicycles certainly do come in handy when hills need to be climbed on morning commutes, or loads need to be hauled.

E-bikes can be quite expensive, however, plus their motors and batteries make them heavy and clunky when their electric-assist feature isn’t being used.

That’s where the Ridekick kicks in. The motorised trailer quickly hooks onto an existing bicycle, pushing it to speeds of up to 19 mph (30.5 km/h), for a distance of about 12 miles (19 km) per charge. When you want your regular ol’ human-powered bike back, you just unhook it and go.

Ridekick provides an electric boost to regular bicycles - Images

Jet motorbike: Record breaking Attempt

RICHARD BROWN is a man with unfinished business.

In 1999, he smashed the one-way speed record for a motorbike by hitting 584 kilometres per hour on the salt flats of Bonneville in northern Utah. But his claim on the outright world record - which is based on the average of two runs in opposite directions - was thwarted by technical problems.

Now he is trying again. He hopes to be the first person to exceed 720 km/h on a motorbike while achieving an average two-way speed of at least 640 km/h. Any old bike will not do: he will be using one that is jet-propelled.

While cars used in land-speed-record attempts, like the Bloodhound jet car that will attempt the challenge in 2012, and certain types of boat have taken advantage of jet thrust since the 1950s, all record-breaking motorbikes have used a conventional engine that drives the rear wheel.

This is because it is difficult to pack a jet engine into a two-wheeled frame capable of enormous speed with any degree of safety. Fast cars can be built around old jet fighter engines, but these are far too heavy to fit into a bike that must be balanced by the driver making tiny steering adjustments to the front wheel.

So for his new bike, called Jet Reaction, Brown has redesigned a 930-kilowatt helicopter engine to produce thrust instead of turning a rotor. It was "quite difficult", he says.

"One is working with very fine tolerances in very difficult materials. If you get it wrong, destroying the engine is the most likely result."

Brown has also added his own reheat unit, or afterburner. It sprays fuel into the hot exhaust gases, causing it to ignite and generate yet more thrust. The idea sounds simple enough, though he says that getting it to work at something approaching its theoretical potential "requires much more development". The reheat burner sits above two canisters that deploy braking parachutes when needed.

Brown has a track record in ambitious jet engine projects. Following his 1999 record attempt he built a sub-orbital rocket, but the launch in South Africa had to be cancelled. He is also working on a gas-turbine-powered jet pack, similar to one developed by the US military, that he hopes will allow the wearer to remain airborne for 10 minutes.

Brown's 1999 record attempt involved his own Gillette Mach 3 Challenger bike, which featured a custom-built hybrid rocket engine. The attempt failed because soft ground forced the team to use tyres rather than the usual aluminium wheels. The tyres were only designed to withstand speeds of 380 km/h or so. Eventually the massive centrifugal forces on the rear tyre caused it to deflate.

The current motorbike land-speed record, 606 km/h, was set in 2010 by Rocky Robinson on a bike called the Ack Attack Streamliner. Such record-breakers feature elongated metal bodies - as does Jet Reaction - making them look more like giant bullets than motorcycles. They are also fitted with retractable stabilisers for balance when moving slowly or stationary.

Brown expects to carry out trials with Jet Reaction at a UK airfield in March next year, with an attempt on the world record back at the Bonneville salt flats pencilled in for 2013.

It won't be easy, says Mark Chapman, Bloodhound's chief engineer. "The biggest issue is air intake," he says. "You have to be sure the air flow through the jet is stable or the engine could surge, which could be dangerous."

Volta BCN: 2011 Milan EICMA debut - YouTube

Spain's Volta Motorbikes is at the International Motorcycle Exhibition in Milan this week, to debut two varieties of its new Volta electric motorcycle. The Volta BCN is the company's first two-wheeler and the first to be designed in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, after which it is named.

It's essentially one model offered in two different styles and finishes - the Sport has been designed as an urban motorbike, while the City is headed for the downtown core. These stylish sustainable mobility solutions offer a top speed of 74.5 mph (120 km/h) and a range of 43.4 miles (70 km), and will be released in Europe in Q2 of next year.

The BCN has a 33 bhp/25Kw DC electric motor that powers a maintenance-free, direct-drive belt transmission and makes 67Nm of torque - said to be roughly equivalent to a 250-to-400-cm³ fuel-driven motorbike.

Its 74V/3.1 kWh Lithium Polymer battery pack can be recharged from any 220V outlet or public charging point via an onboard charger and supplied 2-meter (6.56-foot) charging cable with a schuko plug.

Full recharge time is given as two hours, but partial top-ups are also possible. Volta says that after around five years of daily charging, the battery should still have 80 percent of its initial capacity.


The BCN's quoted top speed and range falls not a stone's throw from the current Zero S electric motorcycles, but is not quite up to the 2012 upgrades which will boast top speeds of up to 88 mph (142 km/h) and over 100 mile (160 km) range.

Volta Motorcycles is currently in the process of building a distribution network ahead of Q2 2012 availability.

The company will initially release the BCNs in Spain, before breaking out into the international market.

Both the Sport and the City carry an estimated price of EUR 7,000 (about US$9,500).

To read more of this article visit the website here

Brammo: Electric motorcycle maker raises $28 million

US based electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo announced on Wednesday that it has raised $28 million from investors to boost development of electric powertrain technology.

Leading the charge was investor Polaris Industries, a powersports giant that makes all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, motorcycles and road-legal electric vehicles.

This company's innovations are under development, including military vehicles that can shrug off small arms fire and his company’s entry into sustainability, from supply chain simplification to the company’s first electric vehicles, launched in 2009.

“We’re not going to buy something to get bigger; we’re going to buy something to get better, faster,” he said when asked about future acquisitions.

It would appear that time is now.

The deal extends Brammo’s powertrain technology to different vehicle types much in the way that Tesla supplies Toyota with its all-electric powertrain.

It gives Polaris, inventor of the first snowmobile and the market leader for its various segments, a leg up on EV technology that it knows will replace the Swiss-developed four-stroke engines it traditionally uses.

It also gives Brammo more places to reap revenues for its R&D efforts. The company has dabbled in off-road vehicles before, with its Encite motorcycle, but cooperation with Polaris opens the door for more applications.

World's smallest electric motor made from single molecule

Chemists at Tufts University have developed the world's first single molecule electric motor, which may potentially create a new class of devices that could be used in applications ranging from medicine to engineering.

The molecular motor was powered by electricity from a state of the art, low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope.

This microscope sent an electrical current through the molecule, directing the molecule to rotate in one direction or another.

The molecule had a sulphur base (yellow); when placed on a conductive slab of copper (orange), it became anchored to the surface.

The sulphur-containing molecule had carbon and hydrogen atoms radiating off to form what looks like two arms (gray); these carbon chains were free to rotate around the central sulphur-copper bond.

The researchers found that reducing the temperature of the molecule to five Kelvin (K), or about minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit (ºF), enabled them to precisely impact the direction and rotational speed of the molecular motor

The Tufts team plans to submit this miniature electric motor to the Guinness World Records. The research was published online Sept. 4 in Nature Nanotechnology.

Credit: Heather L. Tierney, Colin J. Murphy, April D. Jewell, Ashleigh E. Baber, Erin V. Iski, Harout Y. Khodaverdian, Allister F. McGuire, Nikolai Klebanov and E. Charles H. Sykes.

YouTube - ‪BMW shows pre-production electric scooter‬‏

Don't be put off buy the odd paint job on this concept bike - that's the standard camouflage BMW and many other manufacturers use to conceal the final body shape of concept and pre-production test vehicles.

Under the skin, the E-Scooter looks to be a reasonably well designed but unremarkable electric maxi-scooter reminiscent of the Vectrix that more or less pioneered decent-sized electric motorcycles in the western world.

It's worth noting that in certain parts of Asia, electrics are almost as common as petrol scooters, but they travel at lower speeds and have shorter ranges than would be appealing to the U.S. market.

So what's changed since the Vectrix? Not an awful lot, on the surface of it. Vectrix chose a hub-mounted drive motor, BMW uses a chain drive and a motor that's built into the battery pack. Presumably BMW will be using Lithium based batteries as opposed to the Vectrix's old-school NiMH powerpack.

Range and top speed more or less match the Vectrix - the BMW will do more than 100 km/h (62 mph) and will travel more than 100 km (62 miles) on a charge if you go gentle on the throttle. But our recent experience testing the Zero Electric Supermoto taught us exactly how much of a difference your riding style can make to a modern electric's range figures.

Pootle it around at 50 km/h (can you actually pootle an electric?) and it feels like the battery will last forever. Sit at 100 km/h on a freeway and it's quite terrifying to watch as the battery bars disappear before your very eyes.

Regenerative braking will help keep a little more juice in the battery as you ride, but in general, as with most electrics, you plug the E-Scooter into the wall to charge it. A full charge from empty is over in about three hours, but you'll rarely run it all the way to empty.

The VW E-Up! - The Frankfurt Motor Show 2009

...and, especially for the Yorkshire market place - the VW E-Up!, an electric car which should go into volume production in 2013