Reinventing The Wheel By Reuben Stone
As concerns over global warming grow, MIT unveils its latest creation - an eco-tech lovechild that reinvents the nature of the wheel.
The Copenhagen Wheel It’s no secret the past decade has seen a massive influx in technological advancements – from mobile phones, computers, science and medicine, to one of the most universally effecting achievements in tech to date – the social networking phenomenon. With this exciting and fastpaced decade, however, the health of our environment has also come under serious scrutiny. The growing awareness of climate change and damaging CO2 emissions has been at the forefront of global debate, prompting new ideas and new methods for sustaining and promoting a healthier planet. With this in mind, various institutions, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Center for Alternative Technology (CAT) have been working on developing technology with and Eco-friendly edge - and this years hot topic is the Copenhagen Wheel. The wheel is an ingenious
design, fashioned by MIT to promote cycling as an effective and environmentally friendly form of transport – without all the effort! The wheel turns the bike you already own, quickly and easily into an electric bike with regeneration and real-time environmental sensing capabilities. It harvests the energy you input while braking and cycling and stores it for when you need a bit of a boost. At the same time, sensors in the wheel are collecting information about air and noise pollution, congestion and road conditions. The Copenhagen Wheel differs from other electric bikes in that all components are elegantly packaged into one hub. There is no external wiring or bulky battery packs, making it retrofittable into any bike. Inside the hub, the designers have arranged a motor, 3-speed internal hub gear, batteries, a torque sensor, GPRS and a sensor kit that monitors CO, NOx, noise (db), relative humidity and temperature. In the future, you will be able to spec out your
hub according to your riding habits and needs! The focus of the wheel is the promotion of a self-sustaining and stress-free form of transport, with zero emissions and obvious health benefits to the rider. And if that’s not enough, the wheel is controlled through your Smart Phone and becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. Simply place your phone on the handlebars,
and its Bluetooth module syncs with the Bluetooth module in the hub of the Copenhagen Wheel. You can then use your phone and the Copenhagen Wheel Application to unlock and lock your bike, change gears, select how much the motor assists you and for viewing relevant real-time information. “The Copenhagen Wheel is part of a more general trend: that of inserting intelligence in our everyday objects and of creating a smart support infrastructure around ourselves for everyday life,” says Assaf Biderman, associate director of the project. “For example, the Wheel has a smart lock: if somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike.”
‘Biking 2.0’ “Over the past few years we have seen a kind of ‘biking renaissance, which started in Copenhagen and is now transforming the urban experience in many cities from Paris to Barcelona or Montreal,” says Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Laboratory. “We could also call it a ‘Biking 2.0’ revolution, whereby cheap electronics allow us to augment bikes and convert them into a more flexible, on-demand system. We’re showing that biking can really help some of today’s problems in cities, such as congestion, pollution and climate change.” The Copenhagen wheel will be hitting the market next year and will cost approximatelly £500 (considering the current market for electronic bikes). According to Claus Juhl, CEO of Copenhagen, the city is planning to place the first order and
use bicycles retrofitted with the Copenhagen Wheel as a substitution for city employee cars as part of the city’s goal to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital, a goal it hopes to reach by 2025.
A project by the MIT Senseable City Lab senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/ Photos by Max Tomasinelli www.maxtomasinelli.com