Way OT: News of "it"

[Goddard, Duncan]

>>><< I think you're both right- I looked at the patent and the news articles 
> and decided this was c5 all over again. if kamen gets any backing for this 
> apparently wonderful achievement in servo-design, sir clive sinclair will be 
> spitting blood.
>  so people have seen this wheelchair do it's stuff?
>   >>
> 
> This doesn't quite make sense to me...The Ibot wheelchair has been known 
> about for some time; it's not a big secret and has been demonstrated publicly 
> by Kamen, who used it to climb the stairs of the Eiffel tower. It also takes 
> more than 10 minutes to assemble with hex wrenches and pliers.....<<<
> 
> 
ah- I was referring to the subject of the patent that one of the thread-links pointed at; mr kamen is mentioned amongst the authors of a patent which is for a single-person/payload carrying device based, it seems, on some of the same principles as the i-bot, i.e. the servo-stabilisation. 
the device in the patent, not the wheelchair, may well be the subject of the original question. I asked if the wheelchair was proof of his technology- sorry if I wasn't clear.
the patent mentions several versions of this "vehicle", using various combinations of wheels or balls and different configurations, and there's some science about the servo system too, but the most interesting part was the speculation (I imagine it's just that at the moment) that this device would be of use to parkinson's disease patients, since the operating principle involves a servo loop that is essentially intended to dampen attitude-variations of any speed or magnitude due to the disposition of the payload. it all seems so plausible.......

d. 


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