A dicycle is a vehicle

Vehicle

A vehicle is a device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo. Most often vehicles are manufactured, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft....

 with two wheel

Wheel

A wheel is a device that allows heavy objects to be moved easily through rotating on an axle through its center, facilitating movement or transportation while supporting a load, or performing labor in machines. Common examples found in transport applications. A wheel, together with an axle,...

s side by side, unlike single-track vehicle

Single-track vehicle

A single-track vehicle is a vehicle that leaves a single ground track as it moves forward. Single-track vehicles usually have little or no lateral stability when stationary but develop it when moving forward or controlled...

s such as motorcycle

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

s and bicycle

Bicycle

A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

s, which have one wheel followed by another.

The diwheel design has the two large outer wheels completely encompassing an inner frame. The inner frame is free to rotate within the wheels, and is typically supported by a common axle or idlers which roll on the wheels (see figure). Diwheels, like their more popular cousins the monowheel

Monowheel

A monowheel is a one-wheeled single-track vehicle similar to a unicycle. However, instead of sitting above the wheel, the rider sits either within it or next to it. The wheel is a ring, usually driven by smaller wheels pressing against its inner rim...

, have been around for almost one and a half centuries. All of these platforms suffer from two common issues affecting driver comfort; slosh and tumbling (also known as gerbilling). Sloshing is when the inner frame oscillates, and it occurs in all monowheels and diwheels where the centre of gravity of the inner frame is offset from the centre line of the wheels. It is very prevalent as these platforms typically have low damping

Damping

In physics, damping is any effect that tends to reduce the amplitude of oscillations in an oscillatory system, particularly the harmonic oscillator.In mechanics, friction is one such damping effect...

 between the wheel and the frame, to minimise power consumption during locomotion. In addition, during severe braking or acceleration the inner frame will tumble relative to the earth centred frame, which affects the ability of the driver to control the platform. Both the sloshing and tumbling issue can be controlled through feedback control, and has been demonstrated successfully in the diwheel called EDWARD.

US Patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 Class 180/240 lists all the vehicles coming under powered dicycles. This class has patents related to unmanned folding

Folding

Fold or folding may refer to:* Paper folding, the art of folding paper* Book folding, in book production* Skin fold, an area of skin that folds* Fold , in the game of poker, to discard one's hand and forfeit interest in the current pot...

 vehicles to be used for tactical

Military tactics

Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...

 purposes by the US government. Other vehicles in this US Patent Class are mostly invented by Dean Kamen

Dean Kamen

Dean L. Kamen is an American entrepreneur and inventor from New Hampshire.Born in Rockville Centre, New York, he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but dropped out before graduating after five years of private advanced research for drug infusion pump AutoSyringe...

 or his associates, like the Segway PT

Segway PT

The Segway PT is a two-wheeled, self-balancing transportation machine invented by Dean Kamen. It is produced by Segway Inc. of New Hampshire, USA. The name "Segway" is a homophone of "segue" while "PT" denotes personal transporter....

, a balancing

Balancing

The concept of balancing derives from the Balance of Power Theory, the most influential theory from the realist school of thought, which assumes that a formation of hegemony in a multistate system is unattainable since hegemony is perceived as a threat by other states, causing them to engage in...

 dicycle.

Equations of motion

The equations of motion for the Diwheel can be found in the following paper derived at the University of Adelaide.

In popular culture

The Hailfire Droid is a dicycle in the Star Wars universe, which was based on the real-life WW1 era experimental Tsar tank

Tsar Tank

The Tsar Tank , also known as the Netopyr which stands for pipistrellus or Lebedenko Tank , was an unusual Russian armoured vehicle developed by Nikolai Lebedenko , Nikolai Zhukovsky , Boris Stechkin , and Alexander Mikulin...

.

External links

• Dicycles and Diwheels throughout history
• EDWARD - Electric DiWheel with Active Rotation Damping
• http://www.fabels.org/fred.html Dicyclet - pedal driven Dicycle by Dutch artist Fred Abels