Mechanical Engineering
Electric Bike Transmission
I participated in the Capstone Design Electric Bike Project, part of the University of Maryland electric bike challenge. The group designed systems for electric bikes with many novel abilities. I designed drive and break mechanisms to make an unmanned trike, as well as an electric transmission. The goal of the electric transmission was to allow for automatic gear shifting. I developed an electric derailleur and control buttons. The full automatic transmission was implemented in collaboration with my fellow students.
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To build the electric shifter, I replaced a linkage on the derailleur with a custom linkage build around a powerful servo. The servo linkage allowed for the position of the derailleur to be moved without a shifter cable. I then constructed a handle bar mounted push button controller with an OLED screen that indicates the gear. An Arduino was used to control the system and the various components of the bike.
For this project, I also worked on a remote control trike. This system was designed as a platform that would be used to test autonomous systems such as lidar and GPS navigation. I created an electric braking system for the trike by replacing the brake system with disk brakes and actuating the brake cable via a motor. This allowed the brakes to work via remote or to be operated manually. The bike was controlled by a phone app. The video shows a test of the throttle and brakes with a passenger steering.