JPH09315377A - Bicycle with electric motor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To facilitate the maintenance of human functions and the improvement of physical strength with the prevention of unreasonable exercises by activating a motor driving power computing part according to driver's pulses. SOLUTION: Driver's pulses are measured by a human body index detecting circuit 87. Standard pulses corresponding to driver's attribute is read out from a memory 90. A pulse judging section 88e mutually compares both the above pulses, and at a point when the measured pulse exceeds the standard pulse, driving power computed in a motor driving power computing part 88b is outputted to an output changing over section 88c. A D.C. electric motor 22 is therefore driven according to driver's foot operating force. Namely, the bicycle with an electric motor is run by the driver's foot operating force and the driving power of the D.C. electric motor 22.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electric motor-equipped bicycle, and more particularly to an electric motor-equipped bicycle provided with a first drive system and a second drive system, which are driven by a driver's pedal force, in parallel.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An example of a bicycle with an electric motor of this kind is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-2463 filed on September 24, 1993.
No. 78 [B62M 23/02, B62K 11 /
00] and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-107267 [B62M 23/02, published on April 19, 1994].
B62K 11/00, B62M 17/00]. Of these, the former sets the output of the electric drive system to 0 when the pedal effort of the driver is smaller than the reference value, thereby minimizing the use of the electric drive system. In the latter case, the driving force of the electric motor is controlled in accordance with the increase / decrease of the human body index indicating the physical strength and fatigue of the driver to constantly obtain an appropriate assisting force.

[0003]

However, it is not preferable from the viewpoint of maintaining human functions (leg strength, endurance, etc.) to exert an assisting force so that the driver does not feel tired as in the latter case. On the other hand, in the former, the driving force of the electric motor is controlled according to the change in the pedaling force, but the human body index of the driver is not taken into consideration in this control.

Therefore, a main object of the present invention is to provide an electric motor-equipped bicycle capable of maintaining human functions and enhancing physical strength while preventing excessive fatigue and excessive exercise.

[0005]

According to the present invention, in a bicycle with an electric motor having a first drive system by a driver's pedal force and a second drive system by an electric motor in parallel, the drive force of the electric motor is based on the pedal force. A bicycle equipped with an electric motor, comprising: a computing means for computing the human body index, a human body index detecting means for detecting a human body index of a driver, and an activating means for activating the computing means according to the human body index.

[0006]

The human body index detecting means detects, for example, the pulse as the human body index of the driver. Further, a plurality of reference pulses corresponding to the driver's attribute are stored in, for example, the memory means, and the desired reference pulse is read out by the reading means, for example. The activation means activates the calculation means when, for example, the driver's pulse exceeds the reference pulse.
Therefore, when the driver's pulse is not high, the bicycle equipped with the electric motor is driven only by the pedaling force of the driver, and when the pulse of the driver is high, the driving force of the electric motor is calculated based on the pedaling force of the driver. The pedal with the electric motor is driven by the pedaling force of the pedal and the driving force of the electric motor.

[0007]

According to the present invention, the calculation means is activated according to the human body index of the driver, so that the function of the human body is maintained and the physical strength is promoted while preventing excessive fatigue and excessive exercise. You can The above-mentioned objects, other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the embodiments with reference to the drawings.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring to FIG. 1, a bicycle with an electric motor of this embodiment includes a main frame 10 and a main frame 1
0 extends from the head pipe 12 obliquely downward and rearward to the rear wheel 14
Up to the axle. A seat tube 16 is fixed so as to be substantially orthogonal to the main frame 12, and a seat post 20 supporting a saddle 18 is fixed to the upper end of the seat tube 16. Below the seat tube 16, a tubular portion 16a opened downward is formed, and the DC electric motor 22 is housed therein. Further, below the DC electric motor 22, a power unit 24 is provided.
Is fixed. The power unit 24 includes a bottom bracket case (BB case) 26 and a rear stay 28 extending rearward from the BB case 26, and the rear wheel 14 is fixed to a rear end of the rear stay 28. As can be seen from FIG. 2, the drive shaft 30 is inserted through the right rear stay 28.

Referring to FIG. 2, a crank shaft 32 is passed through the BB case 26, and cranks 34 are fixed to both ends thereof. A crank pedal 36 is attached to the crank 34. The left end of the axle 38 of the rear wheel 14 is fixed to an end plate 28a fixed to the left rear stay 28, and the right end of the axle 38 is fixed to a bevel gear case 40 fixed to the right rear stay 28. A hub 42 is rotatably held on the axle 38 and the drive shaft 30 is attached to the hub 42.
Is transmitted via the bevel gear mechanism 44. The electric motor 22 is fitted and fixed to the BB case 26 from above,
The motor shaft 22a is orthogonal to the crank shaft 32 and is located near the center in the vehicle width direction. The BB case 26 is fitted in the tubular portion 16 a of the seat tube 16 and is joined by four bolts 46.

The rotation of the motor 22 is controlled by the one-way clutch 4
8, the planetary gear type speed reducer 50, the small bevel gear 52, and the large bevel gear 54 are transmitted to the cylindrical resultant shaft 56 rotatably held by the crankshaft 32. The rotation of the resultant shaft 56 is further transmitted to the drive shaft 30 by the bevel gear mechanism 58. The rotation from the rear wheel 14 to the DC electric motor 22 is
It is shut off by a one-way clutch 43 inserted in the hub 42. The planetary gear type speed reducer 50 is provided between the sun gear rotated by the DC electric motor 22 and the ring gear fixed to the BB case 26, and transmits the backward rotation of the planetary gear meshing with the sun gear to the bevel gear 52. .

On the other hand, the rotation given by the pedaling force of the driver from the pedal 36 is passed through the crankshaft 32, the one-way clutch 60 and the planetary gear type speed increasing gear 62 to form the large bevel gear 54.
Conveyed to. Therefore, the rotation input from the crankshaft 32 is transmitted from the large bevel gear 54 to the drive shaft 30 via the resultant shaft 56 and the bevel gear mechanism 58. The rotation of the crankshaft 32 is not transmitted to the motor 22 by the action of the clutch 48 while the motor 22 is stopped. Further, even when the crankshaft 32 is stopped or rotated in the reverse direction, the action of the clutch 60 causes the DC electric motor 22 to operate.
Is not transmitted to the crankshaft 32.

As can be seen from FIGS. 3 and 4, the planetary gear type speed increaser 62 includes a ring gear 62a fixed to the large bevel gear 54, a sun gear 62b fixed to the pedal effort detection lever 64, and a space between them. And a planetary gear 62c interposed between the two. The crankshaft 32 rotates the planetary gear 62c rearward via the one-way clutch 60. The pedal effort detection lever 64 detects the drive force when the pedal 36 is driven by the reaction force applied to the sun gear 62b.
Which constitute a part of. The pedal effort detection circuit 65 is located on the left side of the plane A.

That is, the lever 64 of the pedaling force detection circuit 65 has two protrusions 64a and 64b, and one protrusion 64a abuts on the stopper 66 so that the clockwise rotation of FIG. It regulates rotation in the direction opposite to the applied direction. The lever 68 abuts on the protrusion 64b, and is rotated clockwise by the counterclockwise rotation of the lever 64. The lever 68 is given a habit of returning by the return spring 70, and thereby the lever 64 is given a habit of returning in the clockwise direction of FIG. The amount of rotation of the lever 68 is
It is transmitted to the potentiometer 72 as a pedaling force sensor. As a result, the lever 64 is proportional to the pedaling force of the pedal 36.
Rotates in the clockwise direction in FIG. 3 and the lever 68 rotates in the clockwise direction, so this pedaling force can be obtained from the amount of rotation of the potentiometer 72.

In FIG. 1, the rechargeable battery 80 and the controller 82 are housed between the head pipe 12 of the main frame 10 and the seat tube 16. Also,
In FIG. 2, a vehicle speed detection circuit 84 is provided facing the large bevel gear 56, and electromagnetically or optically detects the rotation of the large bevel gear 56. Vehicle speed S detected by the pedaling force F _L and the vehicle speed detecting circuit 84 detected by the pedal force detection circuit 65 is input to the controller 82, the controller 82 controls the motor current I on the basis of the pedaling force F _L and the vehicle speed S, the motor torque T _M Generate.

The controller 82 includes a CPU 88a and a memory 90 in which a table of human body indexes shown in FIG. 6 is stored.
And a motor output control circuit 92. In addition, CPU
The configuration of 88a is represented by using functional blocks. Depression force detected by the depression force detecting circuit 65 F _L is applied to the motor drive force calculation portion 88b of CPU88a, a motor drive force by the number 1 F _M is calculated.

[0016]

## EQU1 ## F _M = aF _L a: proportional constant On the other hand, the human body index detection circuit 87 detects the pulse of the driver,
This is given to the pulse determination unit 88e. Human body index detection circuit 8
7 is not shown in FIG. 1, but specifically, the attached cap-shaped measuring jig is attached to the handle grip,
The pulse is measured by inserting a finger into the measuring jig. Further, the memory 90 stores the table shown in FIG. In this table, reference pulses corresponding to the attributes of the driver, that is, sex, age, physical fitness, and purpose are written. It should be noted that two reference pulses are set corresponding to each attribute, but when the measured pulse is rising, the reference pulse with a large value is used, and when the measured pulse is falling. Is used as a reference pulse having a small value. Further, an input device 92 is arranged at the center of the steering wheel, and when the driver inputs his / her own attribute, the data reading section 88f reads the reference pulse corresponding to the attribute from the memory 90, and the pulse determining section 88e. Give to.

Therefore, the pulse determination unit 88e is measured.
The output switching unit 88c according to the pulse rate and the reference pulse rate.
You. That is, for example, if a driver is a 36-year-old man and wants to lose weight,
When I am a target person, when the pulse exceeds 125
Driving force F_M= A · F_LThe output switching unit 88 is controlled so that
Control. In addition, when the pulse falls below 114, the driving force F
_MThe output switching unit 88c is controlled so that = 0. What
By the way, it was measured that I set two reference pulses.
Driving force F when the pulsating pulse fluctuates near the reference pulse _MCut
This is to prevent frequent replacement.

The motor voltage calculation unit 88d includes an output switching unit 8
Driving force F from 8c_MAnd the vehicle speed S from the vehicle speed detection circuit 84
And are given. The motor operation unit 88d is given a drive
Force F _MBased on the vehicle speed and the vehicle speed S, drive the motor as follows.
Dynamic voltage V_MAsk for. In the DC electric motor 22,
Applied voltage V_M, Number between motor current I and rotation speed N
2 holds.

[0019]

## EQU00002 ## V _M = I.R + b.N R: Amateur equivalent resistance b: Proportional constant b.N: Armature backflow power Further, since the torque T _M of the DC electric motor 22 is generally proportional to the motor current I, 3 holds.

[0020]

## EQU3 ## T _M = cI c: Proportional constant Therefore, if R / c = d, then Equation 4 holds.

[0021]

## EQU00004 ## V _M = dT _M + bN In this Expression 4, the first term dT _M on the right side is a term relating to torque, and the second term bN is a term relating to rotational speed. The relationship between the motor torque and the driving force F _M generated by the motor is temporarily determined if the reduction ratio, the wheel radius, etc. are determined.
For example, it is expressed by Equation 5.

[0022]

[Equation 5] F _M = e · T _M e: Proportional constant Therefore, the motor drive voltage V _M is obtained by inputting the driving force F _M and the rotation speed N obtained from the vehicle speed S at this time into the equation 1. be able to. The motor drive voltage V _M thus obtained is input to the motor output control circuit 92, and the motor output control circuit 92 causes the motor 22 and the battery 8 to operate.
The PWM control of the thyristor 104 interposed between 0 and 0 is performed. As a result, the driving force F _M is F _M = a · F _L only during the measurement pulse <reference pulse, and this is added to the pedaling force F _L. That is, the total driving force of the electric motor-equipped bicycle is (F _L + F _M ) during this period, and the total driving force is F _L during the other periods.

In this embodiment, since the driving force F _M is controlled according to the driver's pulse, it is possible to maintain the function of the human body and increase the physical strength while preventing excessive labor and excessive exercise.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a development view showing a power system of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a side view showing a pedaling force detection unit.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along line VV of FIG. 3 embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing functional blocks of a controller.

FIG. 6 is an illustrative view showing a table written in a memory.

[Explanation of symbols]

 72 ... Potentiometer 82 ... Controller 87 ... Human body index detection circuit 88 ... CPU 84 ... Vehicle speed detection circuit 90 ... Memory

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A bicycle with an electric motor comprising a first drive system based on a pedal effort of a driver and a second drive system based on an electric motor in parallel, and a computing means for computing a drive force of the electric motor based on the pedal effort. A bicycle with an electric motor, comprising: a human body index detecting means for detecting a human body index of the driver; and an activating means for activating the computing means according to the human body index. 2. The human body index includes the pulse of the driver, and further comprises a memory unit in which a plurality of reference pulses corresponding to the attributes of the driver are stored and a reading unit for reading out a desired reference pulse from the memory unit. The bicycle with an electric motor according to claim 1, wherein the activation means activates the calculation means when the pulse rate of the driver exceeds the reference pulse rate.