EDWARD is an acronym and means Electric Diwheel With Active Rotation Damping. He is developed by students in the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Adelaide in Australia. This purely electric diwheel was completely finished in 2010 and has some additional functionalities missing in other models, like a built-in dynamic lateral stability and slosh control to prevent tumbling in aggressive maneuvers or sharp braking. It also offers the unique possibility to drive the diwheel while your body is positioned upside down. This is achieved by combining swing-up and inversion controller, so you can keep the vehicle in its unstable state.
The basic maximum speed of this creature is approximately 40 km/h as it is limited by the drive ratio of the engine and drive wheels. You have the option to change this ratio to increase the top speed, but thereby reducing the acceleration and maneuverability. EDWARD has a high center of gravity in order to become susceptible to slosh and tumbling. This fact has limited the maximum incline that is possible to climb to a really humble level – approximately 12 degrees. Battery gives you nearly 1 hour of really aggressive driving, including rapid acceleration and deceleration, sharp turns and spins and so on. The driving time is much more if you are calm and attentive driver and if you don’t force Eddie to the maximum of his abilities.
