Urban Transport

Honda develops new personal mobility device – the U3-X experimental vehicle

View 27 Images
There's no word on speed just yet, though we'd imagine it won't be much faster than a brisk walk
It seems too small to be personal transportation as we know it, but there may well be a U3-X in your future.
We've had 2,3 and 4 wheel transportation, now get set for the possibility of your own personal 1-wheel transportation - the Honda U3-X
Small enough for use inside the office - try that in your Hummer.
Honda's walking assist devices (here, walking assist devices come in several different shapes and sizes).
Non-threatening, environmentally-friendly, last-mile-transport
Turn it off, carry it away, store it under a desk - the U3-X is small enough to be taken on an aeroplane as hand luggage
The Honda U3-X experimental vehicle runs for an hour
One of the great aspects of the U3-X experimental vehicle is that it will be suitable for use by even very short users
There's no word on speed just yet, though we'd imagine it won't be much faster than a brisk walk
Suitable for indoor use too
The Honda U3-X experimental vehicle
The Honda U3-X experimental vehicle will be demonstrated at Tokyo later this month
The Honda U3-X with the seats and footrests folded out ready for use.
A pair of Honda U3-X experimental vehicles
The seats stow within the Honda U3-X when not in use
Portable and less than 10kg in weight - the Honda U3-X
The enabling technology of the Honda U3-X - Honda's Omni Traction Drive System enables the wheel to roll both forward and sideways
The Honda U3-X, ready for use
The Honda U3-X, ready for stowing under a desk or in a cupboard
Riding the HandsFree Transporter in Amsterdam - almost like teleportation in that all controls are intuitive - within minutes you're moving freely, seemingly by thought alone. We expect the U3-X is quite similar.
The HandsFree Transporter
The BRP Embrio
The BRP Embrio
The BRP Embrio
The BRP Embrio
The most telling image Honda has yet released of the U3-X - the picture shows the U3-X recessed into the doors of one of its electric vehicles - the U3-X is clearly a last mile transport solution capable of supplementing existing automobile transport. Ingenious!!!!
The HFT makes a perfect filming vehicle for video camermen
View gallery - 27 images

A self-balancing unicycle experimental vehicle from Honda to be shown at the Tokyo Motor Show next month might just be history in the making. Weighing less than 10kg, the 24 by 12 by 6-inch U3-X experimental vehicle runs for an hour, is small enough to be carried onto an airplane as hand luggage, has a wheel which spins in two planes and is set to challenge, perhaps even change, society’s concept of personal mobility.

Little more than a century after mass market personal transport became a reality, it seems we’re set to have a mobility renaissance thanks to the need for zero emission vehicles, better electric motors, rapidly improving battery technology and the exploding field of material science.

Mass produced personal transport currently comes in two, three and four wheeled forms but with new materials and technologies beginning to catch up with science fiction, and an army of young designers unrestrained by old thinking, the concept of personal transport seems set to evolve into forms that we have hardly before imagined.

The need for urgent action on global warming has seen large amounts of money allocated to R&D for environmentally sustainable transport and we’re beginning to see a range of new and very different form factors.

At the IBC conference a fortnight ago in Amsterdam I tried a device known as the Hands Free Transporter, a Segway derivative with the normal handlebars replaced by controls held between the knees.

I was very taken with the HFT’s capabilities and potential as a personal transport solution for the masses.

The focus of this story is a similar but much smaller experimental one-wheeled device that fits comfortably between a rider's legs, and balances on one wheel to provide free movement in all directions just as if you were walking - forward, backward, side-to-side, and diagonally, all seamlessly.

A prime example of just how far R&D has advanced personal transport in such a short time, is the Embrio, a self-balancing Unicycle concept shown by Bombardier (now BRP) in 2003. The design study anticipated what type of personal transport we might be using in the year 2025. The Embrio concept was developed by BRP using technologies it expected to achieve mass market viability in the ensuing 22 years and I remember writing the story, and thinking how much it sounded like science fiction.

Though Honda’s U3-X is still experimental, only runs for an hour, isn’t as fast as the Embrio and is not hydrogen fuel cell powered, it is already in prototype form and weighs just 10 kg, rather than the 164 kg weight BRP expected of the Embrio in 2025.

Six years later, Honda’s U3-X is one sixteenth of the weight of the Embrio envisioned for 2025 – and 2025 is still more than a decade and a half away.

And though the HFT is two-wheeled rather than one, it has a top speed of 20 kmh, weighs in at 50kg and it is available now.

Honda’s U3-X was cleverly developed by pursuing the concept of "harmony with people" and with its size and weight, it will clearly mix comfortably with pedestrian traffic, though Honda will be conducting extensive testing in a real-world environment to verify and refine the practicality of the device.

The design of the U3-X places the rider on the eye level zone of other pedestrians so that it as friendly and non-threatening to fellow footpath users as possible, while also making it easier for the rider to reach the ground from the footrest without stretching.

Like the Segway and Hands Free Transporter, the U3-X’s speed is adjusted by shifting body weight, though the U3-X adds a whole new dimension in that it doesn’t just go backwards and forwards – it goes sideways, thanks to an ingenious omni-directional wheel system which Honda has dubbed its “HOT Drive System” which is short for Honda Omni Traction Drive System.

Now standing back and trying to view the U3-X with some historical perspective, it’s quite possible that a hundred years from now when battery technology has improved its energy density several orders of magnitude, this machine might well be viewed in the same light as the first examples of the automobile produced by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler 120 years ago.

Clearly personal transport must get smaller and lighter, particularly if it is to share the footpath with humans made from flesh and blood. It also makes sense to make personal transportation devices easily backpackable, so they can be carried on public transport, and at just two feet tall and 12 inches by six inches in cross section, the U3-X is so small that it would never disrupt crowd flow or obstruct a railway carriage as we often see with bicycles on public transport around the world.

Being small and light has its advantages in that it takes much less energy to move it, a lesson that seems to have taken us more than a century to learn with our cars. It's also not the first time that someone has thought of applying self-balancing technology to the unicycle format, as we've covered several concepts employing something like this in recent times, namely the Unomoto One-wheeled Self-balancing Electric Unicycle and this Focus Designs Unicycle Concept.

Redefining next-generation mobility for Honda is the role of Honda’s well-funded R&D Corporation’s Fundamental Technology Research Center in Saitama in Japan which was the birthplace of Honda’s bipedal, humanoid robot ASIMO back in 1986. Developmental work at the FTR Center has seen Asimo evolve rapidly through more than 30 iterations in the last two decades. FTR is also where the remarkable walking assist devices (here, here and here) the company has been showing over the last two years took shape and we can’t wait to see what they come up with next. My bet is that the form factor of the U3-X is probably very close to what we’ll see when it reaches market – just when that will be is anybody’s guess, and will most probably be dictated by advances in battery technology beyond the devices lithium ion batteries, cos one hour just isn’t enough just yet.

With the world’s most prolific demographic, the post-war baby boom moving into old age, Honda and the world’s number one automobile manufacturer (Toyota) both recognize that low speed, footpath bound mobility assist devices will be in great demand a decade from now. Toyota has also shown both walking- and wheeled-chair mobility assist devices in addition to its iREAL wheeled exoskeleton which I was lucky enough to try at the last full Tokyo Motor Show back in 2007.

While the Segway and BRP Embrio use sensors and electric motors to remain upright, the balance control technology of the Honda U3-X is not specified, though it was developed through the robotics research of ASIMO, Honda's bipedal humanoid robot.

As I found with the Hands Free Transporter I tried, which I simply hopped aboard and rode away, controlling a device with body weight alone is surprisingly easy and within a minute or two, it’s like you are controlling a vehicle with thought alone as I was able to be incredibly precise with the HFT and Honda’s press statement predicts similar results with the U3-X.

It works like this - sensors detect slight changes in the incline of the device based on the weight shift of the rider and determines the rider's intention in terms of the direction and speed. Based on the data, the machine delivers smooth and agile movements and simple operation by weight shift only.

Though it is a genuine engineering triumph of some magnitude in its entirety, the U3-X’s most remarkable piece of engineering is the Honda Omni Traction Drive System which enables both forward and backward movement as well as side-to-side movement.

The HOT drive is indeed one of the coolest things you have ever seen if you’re mechanically inclined and consists of many small motor-controlled wheels in-line connected to form one large wheel. Forward and backward movement is done by moving the large wheel, and side-to-side movement is done by moving the small wheels. By combining both, the U3-X moves diagonally, though to the rider, it’s more like thinking "I’ll go that way", and away it goes.

When being carried, the seat and the footrests fold away so it looks more like a ghetto blaster than a transportation device.

And at Honda’s stated weight of less than 10kg, the light-weight it’s highly portable – indeed, it’s not that long ago that computers weighed more than this.

Finally, the U3-X will also incorporate a car2car and car2driver and car2infrastructure communications system named HELLO! (Honda ELectric mobility LOop) and a LOOP portable communication tool that fits in the palm of your hand and “allows people and mobility devices to communicate with each other.”

Though the Tokyo Motor Show is still four weeks away, and promises to be the most significant car show in recent history due to the plethora of eco-centric vehicles we’ll see, I’d be very surprised if the U3-X isn’t the vehicle that we’ll read about in history books a century from now. It just might be a landmark device in transportation history.

Mike Hanlon

View gallery - 27 images
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
10 comments
Tom Murphy
Exactly what the average 350lb american needs - another reason to sit on their ass.
waltinseattle
thats WORD, tim. I also wonder about the less ssteady rider. The physically imparred, the drunk, the sketchy nervous jittry ones. Make way make way, comin thru the mall folks, crash bang hey get the h ouutaa my way.
The thing can only guess your intention, which means its no better than your ability to input. Which means...headed to "ooops!"
Kelly Lute
I don't see the connection between this device and research on global warming. How is this a sustainable technology? Why do we need to mass manufacture a complex, expensive machine to replace walking. Seriously, JUST GO FOR A WALK, people.
Why do we need to buy this expensive thing so that we can get less exercise? After a few months of use, you'll be too fat to use it, anyway.
Dan K
\"Exactly what the average 350lb american needs\"
- right, like the average american is 350lbs.
It never ceases to amaze me how people will make up reasons to insult Americans... I guess it goes to show that there just aren\'t that many real reasons.
Dago
If the selling price is anywhere close to the Segway, I will use my 5 grand as a down payment on a gas guzzling V8!
Edgar Walkowsky
\"Seriously, JUST GO FOR A WALK, people.\"
It\'s amazing how many people come up with the stupid \"lazy\" argument. When was the last time you walked 3 miles (5km)?
Carol Dobson
For you beautiful young, fully able bodied people, please take a moment to think of those of us who aren't any more....the people you will devolve into some day. I personally would welcome this device over a "scooter," a euphamism for wheel chair. I bet you would, too.
This could be a real help for older and disabled people, folks.
caliper4
I agree with Carol, I have trouble walking and I walked all the time. I can't do it any more due to Psoriatic Arthritis, yet I don't want to sit at home and wait to die! I have always been active and I have been looking for something light weight that I can use when I need to and when I don't or want to jump on a train or bus I can do so easy. I need something that folds up and is light weight but can keep up with people walking at a fast pace. If I have to use my arm,s fine but there isn't much out there for people like me. I don't want some cumbersome walker that gets in everyone's way and in my way too! We are baby boomers that need updated wheelchairs and walkers so come on inventers get going!
a11a
Maybe those of you who think just walking is the total answer you may want to experience the difficulty that severely ill or disabled people face every day and then you will understand why a product like this will assist those people to be more mobile and suffer less.
unklmurray
If Gizmag banned "Naysayers" the comment section would be empty!! I don't know of any 350 pound people that would want to ride such a toy....It was NOT designed for a bunch of Fat assed Americans...Just it was shown on an American website doesn't mean they give a "Happy Rats Rektum" what you unintelligent Bufoons think........I know I sure get tired of your BS Rhetoric!!