DEVELOPMENT OF REVERSE PEDALING BRAKING SYSTEM FOR HYBRID TRICYCLE

摘要

Increasing levels of pollution is a major concern to the world in this technology world. One of the main reasons for this is due to emissions from the automobile. People use low occupancy vehicles to travel both far-away and even nearby places. This has deteriorated the quality of air due to emissions from IC engine vehicles. It is need of the hour to shift to the renewable environment friendly version of transport This has been happening gradually and requires high initial cost investment. Most of these problems can be tackled by development of hybrid tricycle which can be driven by electric motor and/or pedaling. This tricycle having tadpole configuration can be used to travel in nearby areas which uses lithium polymer battery as a power source. While developing this tricycle, main goal was to reduce the cost of the vehicle by ensuring simplicity in design, light weight vehicle and safety. This document focuses on development of brakes system for the trike in consideration of human anthropology and safety of commuters. In hybrid trike, there are many controls such as electronic switch, motor switch, throttle, gear shifter which are given in the hands of the driver. Therefore, it can be difficult, if additional control of brakes would be provided in hands. Moreover, if the driver wants to apply all three brakes at the same time, then the required efforts on hands increase significantly. Additionally, there are increasing number of accidents due to human mistakes such as application of brakes and throttle simultaneously. This quest can be resolved by developing mechanism which can take advantage of greater force which can be applied by legs and increased leverage provided by pedals. While developing this mechanism, the focus has been laid on easy availability of components, easy maintenance, light weight and cost effective solution. This paper describes various aspects like reverse pedaling mechanism, how it has benefited in various aspects and compares it with conventional hand operated brakes.