Stationary Exercise Equipment
First Claim
1. A system for group exercising, comprising:
- a plurality of stationary exercise bikes for use by individual users, wherein the stationary exercise bikes provide variable resistance based, at least in part, on a hill angle corresponding to an apparent position on terrain being simulated; and
whereinthe variable resistance is increased and decreased relative to a zero degree hill angle when the apparent positions correspond to uphill and downhill terrain, respectively;
wherein increasing and decreasing resistance provided by at least selected ones of the exercise bikes to simulate hills is synchronized such that the stationary bikes provide increased and decreased resistance at substantially the same time.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A control system and method for exercise equipment and the like provides a way to simulate a physical activity in a manner that takes into account the physics of the physical activity being simulated to provide an accurate simulation. According to one aspect of the present invention, the control system and method takes into account the physics of the corresponding physical activity to generate a virtual or predicted value of a variable such as velocity, acceleration, force, or the like. The difference between the virtual or expected physical variable and a measured variable is used as a control input to control resistance forces of the exercise equipment in a way that causes the user to experience forces that are the same or similar to the forces that would be encountered if the user were actually performing the physical activity being simulated rather than using the exercise equipment.
304 Citations
88 Claims
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1. A system for group exercising, comprising:
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a plurality of stationary exercise bikes for use by individual users, wherein the stationary exercise bikes provide variable resistance based, at least in part, on a hill angle corresponding to an apparent position on terrain being simulated; and
whereinthe variable resistance is increased and decreased relative to a zero degree hill angle when the apparent positions correspond to uphill and downhill terrain, respectively; wherein increasing and decreasing resistance provided by at least selected ones of the exercise bikes to simulate hills is synchronized such that the stationary bikes provide increased and decreased resistance at substantially the same time. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A stationary exercise bike, comprising:
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a support structure; a pair of pedals rotatably connected to the support structure; an electric motor operably connected to the pedals; a controller that is operably connected to the electric motor, wherein the controller causes the electric motor to provide power to the pedals in a manner tending to cause the pedals to rotate. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 75, 76, 77)
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26. A stationary exercise bike, comprising:
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a support structure; a pair of pedals rotatably mounted to the support structure; a force-generating device operably connected to the pedals and generating a variable resistance force to the pedals; a force sensor configured to measure a force applied to the pedals by a user, wherein the force sensor measures a relative displacement of first and second points on the stationary bike that are interconnected by a drive structure defining a stiffness whereby a force can be determined based on the relative displacement and the stiffness; and a controller operably connected to the force-generating device and the force sensor, wherein the controller varies the resistance force generated by the force-generating device to simulate inertial effects based, at least in part, on a force measured by the force sensor. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61)
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62. A stationary exercise bike, comprising:
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a support structure; a pair of pedals rotatably connected to the support structure; a force-generating device that provides a variable resistance force to the pedals; a sensor configured to determine a measured rotational velocity of the pedals; a controller operably connected to the force-generating device and causing the resistance force to vary to simulate inertial effects of a rolling bike, and wherein the controller utilizes the measured rotational velocity of the pedals in determining the resistance force, and wherein the measured rotational velocity is modified by a gear rollout value to define a velocity input that is utilized by the controller to simulate inertial effects. - View Dependent Claims (63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74)
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78. A method of determining if a change in operating characteristics has occurred in a stationary exercise bike, the method comprising:
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providing an exercise bike having pedals and an electric motor capable of moving the pedals; determining an amount of power the electric motor requires to move the pedals a plurality of selected times that are separated by periods of time; comparing the amounts of power from at least two selected times to determine if a change in power exceeding a predefined value has occurred. - View Dependent Claims (79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88)
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Specification