Electric motor-assisted vehicle
First Claim
1. A power assisted, manually powered vehicle having at least one driving wheel, an operator driven driving member to which an operator applies a force manually, a first transmission coupling said operator driven driving member to said driving wheel for operator powered driving of said vehicle, said first transmission including a lost motion connection between said operator driven driving member and driving wheel, an assist motor for exerting a driving force to said vehicle through a second transmission, a differential transmission connected between said operator driven driving member and said driving wheel for providing a signal indicative of change in phase between said operator driven driving member and said driving wheel, said wheel being driven by a sprocket forming a portion of said first transmission and said lost motion connection is formed by said sprocket and an adjacent disk shaped member and juxtaposed to said sprocket and driven by said first transmission, said lost motion connection being resiliently biased to resist relative rotation.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A simplified and low cost torque sensor for a motor assisted manually operated vehicle. The torque sensor is operated by a differential transmission that transmits no driving force for the vehicle. Thus it can be constructed from low cost light weight materials such as aluminum or plastics. This also provides more latitude in the placement of the sensor. A variety of possible differential transmissions are disclosed utilizing either one or two coupled planetary transmissions.
230 Citations
7 Claims
- 1. A power assisted, manually powered vehicle having at least one driving wheel, an operator driven driving member to which an operator applies a force manually, a first transmission coupling said operator driven driving member to said driving wheel for operator powered driving of said vehicle, said first transmission including a lost motion connection between said operator driven driving member and driving wheel, an assist motor for exerting a driving force to said vehicle through a second transmission, a differential transmission connected between said operator driven driving member and said driving wheel for providing a signal indicative of change in phase between said operator driven driving member and said driving wheel, said wheel being driven by a sprocket forming a portion of said first transmission and said lost motion connection is formed by said sprocket and an adjacent disk shaped member and juxtaposed to said sprocket and driven by said first transmission, said lost motion connection being resiliently biased to resist relative rotation.
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7. A power assisted, manually powered vehicle having at least one drivinig wheel, an operator driven driving member to which an operator applies a force manually, a first transmission coupling said operator driven driving member to said driving wheel for operator powered driving of said vehicle, said first transmission including no gears formed from aluminum or plastic, an assist motor for exerting a driving force to said vehicle through a second transmission, said second transmission including no gears formed from aluminum or plastic, a differential transmission comprised of at least one planetary transmission comprised of a sun gear element, a planer carrier element journalling a plurality of planet gears enmeshed with said sun gear element, and a ring gear element enmeshed with said sun gears, at least one of said planetary transmission elements being drivingly connected to said operator driven driving member and at least another of said planetary transmission elements being drivingly connected to said driving wheel for providing a signal indicative of change in phase between said operator driven driving member and said driving wheel, said differential transmission transmits no driving force between the operator driven driving member and the driving wheel and having its gears formed from a material selected from the group consisting of a plastic or aluminum, a phase change sensor associated with said differential transmission for providing a signal indicative of said change in phase, and control means responsive to the output signal of said phase change sensor for supplying an amount of power from said assist motor for assisting the driving of said vehicle said assist motor driving a wheel of the vehicle other than the driving wheel.
Specification