Word: kamen
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...seeds of Ginger were planted at DEKA by what had previously been Kamen's best-known project: the IBOT wheelchair. Developed for and funded by Johnson & Johnson, the IBOT is Kamen's bid to "give the disabled the same kind of mobility the rest of us take for granted"--a six-wheel machine that goes up and down curbs, cruises effortlessly through sand or gravel, and even climbs stairs. More amazing still, the IBOT features something called standing mode, in which it rises up on its wheels and lifts its occupant to eye level while maintaining balance with such stability...
...Kamen and his team were working on the IBOT, it dawned on them that they were onto something bigger. "We realized we could build a device using very similar technology that could impact how everybody gets around," he says. The IBot was also the source of Ginger's mysterious code name. "Watching the IBOT, we used to say, 'Look at that light, graceful robot, dancing up the stairs'--so we started referring to it as Fred Upstairs, after Fred Astaire," Kamen recalls. "After we built Fred, it was only natural to name its smaller partner Ginger...
...With Ginger, as with the IBOT, Kamen explains, "the big idea is to put a human being into a system where the machine acts as an extension of your body." On first inspection, balancing on Ginger seems only slightly more feasible than balancing on a barbell. But what Kamen is talking about is the way Ginger does the balancing for you. Lean forward, go forward; lean back, go back; turn by twisting your wrist. The experience is the same going uphill, downhill or across any kind of terrain - even ice. It is nothing like riding a bike or a motorcycle...
...Exactly how the Segway achieves this effect isn't easy to explain; Kamen's first stab at it involves a blizzard of equations. Eventually, though, he offers this: "When you walk, you're really in what's called a controlled fall. You off-balance yourself, putting one foot in front of the other and falling onto them over and over again. In the same way, when you use a Segway, there's a gyroscope that acts like your inner ear, a computer that acts like your brain, motors that act like your muscles, wheels that act like your feet. Suddenly...
...this trick requires an unholy amount of computer power. In every Segway there are 10 microprocessors cranking out three PCs' worth of juice. Also a cluster of aviation-grade gyros, an accelerometer, a bevy of sensors, two batteries and software so sophisticated it puts Microsoft to shame. If Kamen gets irked when the IBOT is called a wheelchair, imagine his pique when--if--the Segway is called a scooter...