Quotables
"That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."
Scientific American ; Jan. 2 edition, 1909
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8066088 | Biologically inspired climbing device A biologically inspired climbing device with toes and spines is provided. The device has toes capable of moving independently from each other. Each toe distinguishes a compliant linkage, which has non-compliant parts and compliant parts. Spines are distributed over ... | 11/29/2011 |
| 8011459 | Inverted wheel type moving body and method of controlling same To provide an inverted wheel type moving body capable of improving the operability, and a method of controlling the same. An inverted wheel type moving body in accordance with one aspect of the present invention includes motors 34 and 36 for rotational... | 09/06/2011 |
| 7806208 | Stair climbing platform apparatus and method A method for controlling movement of an intelligent wheel over a discontinuity in a travel surface. The intelligent wheel has a rotational hub and support disc portion that carries a series of arcuately spaced extendable, weight bearing radial spoke mechanisms that ... | 10/05/2010 |
| 7784569 | Barrier-overpassing transporter The present invention discloses a barrier-overpassing transporter, which comprises: a support frame carrying a rider or another load; a sensing/adjusting module detecting a tilting state of the support frame and maintaining the support frame in a horizontal state; a... | 08/31/2010 |
| 7673710 | Traveling robot A traveling robot includes a body frame having a front wheel; a rear wheel which is disposed on a rear side of the front wheel along a traveling direction; a rear frame which supports the rear wheel and is supported by the body frame so as to move vertically; a driv... | 03/09/2010 |
| 7520347 | Stair chair with an adjustable glide track resistance and braking device A stair chair for transporting a person up and down a flight of stairs and over a surface is disclosed. The stair chair comprising a main frame and a glide track assembly to support the stair chair for movement on the flight of stairs. The glide track assembly is pi... | 04/21/2009 |
| 7434815 | Stair climbing wheelchair carrier A stair climbing wheelchair carrier operable by an unassisted wheelchair user is provided. The carrier includes a crawler drive unit and a carrying unit. The carrying unit includes a carrier main frame whose position is adjustable up and down relative to the crawler... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7424923 | Mobile robot A mobile robot having wheels which maintain contact forces against a surface even when the mobile robot meets an obstacle on the surface and a body of the mobile robot is forced up against the obstacle. The mobile robot easily surmounts the obstacle on the surface, ... | 09/16/2008 |
| 7398843 | Reconfigurable robot drive A robot including a robot body, a plurality of wheels on the robot body for propelling the robot body, and an axle for each wheel. Each wheel is configured to alternately attach to an axle at or proximate the center of the wheel for high efficiency mobility on flat ... | 07/15/2008 |
| 7384046 | Powered wheeled vehicle capable of travelling on level ground, over uneven surfaces and on stairs Powered wheeled vehicle (1), capable of travelling both on level ground and over uneven surfaces, comprising at least one driving tread (BR11) as well as two pairs of front wheels (R61) and rear wheels (R21), of which at least one is a dr... | 06/10/2008 |
| 7380618 | Stair climbing platform apparatus and method A platform wheeled apparatus that incorporates an intelligent wheel configuration for each wheel in which each wheel can dynamically change its radius to negotiate various obstacles. The intelligent wheel has a rotational hub and support disc that carries a series o... | 06/03/2008 |
| 7363994 | Wheeled platforms A wheeled platform 100 is disclosed, which is characterized by high mobility and reliability, and which can be used in a wide range of applications including transport and robotic devices. The wheeled platform 100 has fore and aft body portions 130,... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7347426 | Stair-climbing wheelchair carrier An extension/retraction cylinder stops or starts tilting the platform of the stair-climbing wheelchair carrier based on a detection signal from an inclination sensor provided in the crawler drive unit. When the crawler drive unit is detected to be not tilted, the ti... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7341266 | Portable folding robotic system A portable robotic system having a folding carriage is disclosed. The carriage in one embodiment includes two legs and a lateral stabilizer. The folding legs and stabilizer allow the carriage to be maneuvered into a plurality of open and closed positions. In the ope... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7316407 | Rolling transport with removable carrying bag and fold-up seat A combination rolling transport and fold-up seat has a detachable carry bag of waterproof, reinforced fabric, detachable snap-on wheels, and collapsible frame. The frame has a stabilizing element that allows it to stand upright and support either items on the load-b... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7316405 | Stair-climbing apparatus An apparatus for climbing and descending stairs or other obstacles has three flexibly connected sections and a pair of crawler belt systems on opposite sides of the unit. Each of the crawler belt systems comprised of three crawler belts are driven by one of a pair o... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7311160 | Wheelchair with forced driven front caterpillar wheels The present invention relates to a wheelchair with forced driven front caterpillar wheels with a cable-hauling ratchet lever by which a user, by himself/herself, can pass over a road-block or drains on roads, lifts up the caterpillars from the ground for easy steeri... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7303031 | Anthropomorphic robot Provided is an anthropomorphic robot having two legs and which is capable of walking upright. Each of the two legs has a foot which comprises an upper plate on which an ankle joint is installed and which is similar to a foot of a human, and a lower plate attached to... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7273116 | Dynamic balancing vehicle with a seat A device for transporting a human subject over a surface. The device is a dynamically balancing vehicle having a control loop for providing balance. The device includes a platform defining a fore-aft plane. The platform supports a payload including the human subject... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7270334 | Wheel assemblies for use with load bearing platforms A wheel assembly for supporting a load bearing platform includes a primary wheel and at least four secondary wheels that are of equal size. The primary wheel includes at least one planar member having an even number of axles at fixed locations extending perpendicula... | 09/18/2007 |
| 7267188 | Electric vehicle An electric vehicle has a control unit having a decelerating control function of decelerating an electric motor disposed on a side of a vehicle body corresponding to a turning direction of the electric vehicle, and an accelerating control function of outputting an a... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7261176 | Articulated vehicle suspension system shoulder joint An articulated vehicle suspension system shoulder joint is disclosed. A vehicle includes a plurality of wheel assemblies; a plurality of rotating shoulder joints, each wheel assembly being mounted to a respective one of the shoulder joints and rotatable in a plane b... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7249640 | Highly mobile robots that run and jump The present invention relates to novel, highly mobile small robots called “Mini-WHEGS™” that can run and jump. They are derived from our larger WHEGS™(“wheel-like lecis”) series of robots, which benefit from abstracted cockroach locomotion principles. Pa... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7246671 | Stair-climbing human transporter A transportation vehicle and methods for transporting persons, robots or cargo, and more particularly motorized vehicles, and methods for transporting over surfaces, including surfaces such as floors, roads, paths and sidewalks, and surfaces having obstacles or incl... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7236096 | Slope detector In a dump truck where a monitoring system prevents the raising of the cargo bed when the level of lateral tilt exceeds a safe limit, a keyed switch allows for presetting the maximum safe degree of tilt by simple left or right manipulation of the switch, and to switc... | 06/26/2007 |
| 7219924 | Rear wheel drive power wheelchair with ground-contacting anti-tip wheels A curb-climbing rear wheel drive power wheelchair is disclosed having a pair of drive wheels, at least one ground-engaging idler wheel connected to the frame forward of the drive wheels and at least one ground-contacting anti-tip caster wheel mounted to the wheelcha... | 05/22/2007 |
| 7199709 | Cart fleet management system A hand-operated cart constructed for carrying luggage or packages includes a frame including a cargo area, and cart wheels connected to the frame and connected to a handrail arranged for manually displacing the cart. The cart also includes a distance sensor construc... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7200482 | Drive control apparatus and method and two-wheeled vehicle A drive control apparatus able to hold an autonomously stabilized posture by a small size configuration by independently detecting abnormalities in a drive system of a first motor and a drive system of a second motor at controllers, outputting the results to majorit... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7163213 | Powered hand truck A powered hand truck for assisting in the movement of objects. The powered hand truck includes an electric motor, a power source, a programable motor controller, and a transaxle, which are adaptable to existing hand trucks, or may be integrated into a new powered ha... | 01/16/2007 |
| 7152882 | Mobile carriage The invention provides a mobile carriage which is adapted to shift the center of gravity efficiently by utilizing the weight of wheel rotating means, power source means and control means to thereby increase the weight of a weight portion and reduce the increase in t... | 12/26/2006 |
| 7143850 | Leg joint assist device for legged movable robot An assist device is provided with a spring device that generates an auxiliary driving force, by an elastic energy, acting on a joint of a leg. The spring device includes a gas spring having a cylinder and a piston. Bending/stretching motion between link members and ... | 12/05/2006 |
| 7137464 | Stair climbing hand truck A hand truck for climbing stairs includes a frame having handles proximate a first end and at least two wheels proximate a second end. A stair climbing mechanism is engaged with the frame proximate the second end. The stair climbing mechanism has a motor and an outp... | 11/21/2006 |
| 7111696 | Legged mobile robot In a legged mobile robot (10) having a motor (42) that rotates the ankle joint (26R (26L)) about a right-and-left axis of the robot (26RY (26LY)) and a speed reducer (58) that reduces speed of an output of the motor, ... | 09/26/2006 |
| 7083013 | Self-leveling and balancing vehicle A self-leveling and balancing vehicle composed of a base and a moving and driving mechanism installed on the base, the mechanism having two longitudinal moving seats installed on the guiding rails fixed on the base, a connecting frame extending to and connecting the... | 08/01/2006 |
| 7056185 | Single axle wireless remote controlled rover with omnidirectional wheels A wireless remote controlled rover (100) having a circular outer boundary when viewed in profile, comprising an elongated round-profile frame (20) outfitted with a pair of omnidirectional wheels (101L,R), rotatable in opposite directions by a dr... | 06/06/2006 |
| 7047835 | Articulated bending mechanism for legged mobile robot and the legged mobile robot An articulated bending mechanism is formed by connecting links which rotatably support a plurality of gears including input-side gears and output-side gears by engaging the gears. Each link rotatably supports an odd number of gears by engaging the gears, and an outp... | 05/23/2006 |
| 7040429 | Wheelchair suspension A wheelchair suspension having plurality of pivoting linkages to lift and retract a front castor assembly to facilitate traversing an obstacle or rough terrain. In this regard, a wheelchair suspension having a frame member and at least one a pivoting assembly is pro... | 05/09/2006 |
| 7036185 | Arrangement in a wheel lifting mechanism The present invention relates to an arrangement in a wheel lifting mechanism designed to lift at least one wheel (1) running on an underlying surface so that it is capable of negotiating an obstacle (h) rising above the underlying surface. The arrangement com... | 05/02/2006 |
| 7021641 | Suspension structure for wheelchair A suspension structure for a wheelchair generally includes movable arm that serve to connect driving wheels with frame of a wheelchair, sliding unit is further provided for enabling the movable arm to movably connect with a front cantilever of the wheelchair. By suc... | 04/04/2006 |
| 7017686 | Hybrid human/electric powered vehicle A personal transporter that provides both for propulsion by a user, and, at the same time, for dynamic stabilization by means of a powered actuator. A pitch variable such as pitch or time rate of change of pitch is sensed and used to determine the torque provided to... | 03/28/2006 |
