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Author Topic: Virtual reality motorized shoes  (Read 2458 times)

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Offline braingame26Topic starter

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Virtual reality motorized shoes
« on: July 30, 2017, 10:45:24 AM »
I've been looking into the various virtual reality treadmills that are out there today, such as the Virtuix Omni, Infinadeck, and Kat Walk. None of them are available to consumers. I've been trying to think of a way to make my own inexpensive virtual reality treadmill. I don't really like how with the Virtuix and Kat walk you have to slide your feet, so I was thinking about doing it with motors.

There is this video where the guy is wearing motorized shoes that negate him walking forward. I'm thinking of trying something like that, but making a few modifications like adding a frame that goes around you with a safety harness you wear so you don't fall over, use an arduino and accelerometers on the feet to control the speed.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYE6dqaereU[/youtube]

I'm a software developer so I can handle the programming side, but I don't have a lot of experience with motors. I looked into the motors that are used in electric skateboards (dc brushless, low kv). Instead of buying big lipo batteries, is there any problem with just hooking the motor (through the ESC) to a dc power supply?

To calculate the motor size I assumed a 77 kg person (around my weight, 170 lbs), an acceleration of 1.34 m/s^2 (3 mph), to get a force of 77 * 1.34 = 103.18 Newtons. For a 2" wheel (0.0254 meter radius), the torque would be 103.18 * 0.0254 = 2.62 Nm. If the max velocity is 6 mph (2.68 m/s), then the rps is 2.68 / (2 * pi * 0.0254) = 16.8. Finally, wattage would be 2.62 * 16.8 * 2 * pi = 276.5 watts. So I need a 275 watt motor. Please let me know if my calculations are wrong.

I also tried to find diy tutorials or commercial motorized shoes so I could see what motors they used. I found X-Shoes and Rocket Skates. X-Shoes claims to use just 2 60W motors, but is able to go 15 km/h. Rocket Skates claims to use 4 55W motors (one in each wheel) and can go 12 mph. These motors seem too small to me to achieve those speeds, but maybe their using a combination of gearing and batteries with a high discharge (so they wouldn't last a while, but they'll go fast), or they're just lying :).

Thanks for any advice!

 


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