Bicycle inclinometer using accelerometer and wheel revolution sensor to compute instantaneous road gradient, uphill power, altitude and frequency of pedalling

Abstract: The bicycle inclinometer combines the output signals of an accelerometer and of a conventional wheel revolution sensor to obtain the simultaneous measurements of road gradient, power generated going uphill, relative altitude. The accelerometer output signal is proportional to the sum of bicycle linear acceleration and parallel component of the gravity field. The bicycle linear acceleration is computed from the output of the wheel revolution sensor, and is subtracted from the output of the accelerometer to obtain the true road gradient. The power generated by the cyclist going uphill is also computed to allow the cyclist a verification of his training fitness. Relative altitude is also measured, by constantly computing the running sum of all the vertical components of the travelled distance. Finally, digital filtering of the accelerometer output signal allows measurement of the frequency of pedalling.

Description: The use of cyclocomputers is nowadays commonplace. Several devices are commercially available which feature various functions: total and partial distance, instantaneous speed, average speed, maximum speed, minimum speed, trip time duration, etc. Recently some manufacturers have introduced models featuring an altimeter function, which makes use of the atmospheric pressure to compute altitude. These devices can also compute the average road gradient, but the barometric method used possesses a typical vertical resolution of about 5m. Hence, to obtain a reasonably accurate indication of the road gradient, it is necessary to cover a distance of some hundreds meters. This method is also inherently sensitive to variations in atmospheric pressure due to change in weather, which could take place during the trip. Furthermore the average road gradient computed in this way can only be an approximation, coinciding with the true value only when covering long stretches of constant gradient. Other techniques for road gradient measurement rely on the accurate measurement of the angular position of a pendulum. One such technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No.. US-A-5 737 247, Mark Ragoza et al., 7.April 1998 (referred here as D1), and a similar one in European Pat. No. EP-A-0 325 196, Helmut Hechinger, 26. July 1989 (referred here as D2). Bicycle power meter are also already available on the market, and usually rely on the measurement of the torque generated, which is then multiplied with the measured speed to obtain the instantaneous power. Various methods exist for the measurement of the torque, generally involving the use of strain gages, with each manufacturer using its own preferred solution. The resulting device is accurate, capable to measure the power generated in any situation, but expensive. The measurement of power is very useful for an accurate assessment of the cyclist fitness, when correlated with the heart bit rate. To this purpose the cyclist would typically chose a preferred stretch of road on which to generate a defined power, by monitoring his heart bit rate (several portable heart beat rate monitors are commercially available) at that given power he is then able to verify his training fitness. It shall now be remarked that the above procedure for the evaluation of fitness does not require a power meter able to measure the generated power in all circumstances, but it would suffice a device capable of measuring power only along those stretches selected for this purpose. The device described here limits the accurate measurement of power, for the purpose of assessing training fitness, only to stretches going uphill, and therefore getting away with a much simpler, and less expensive, device. The solution described here obtains the simultaneous measurements of road gradient and power generated going uphill, by processing the output signals of an accelerometer and of a conventional magnetic pick-up. The inventive step consists in combining a suitable accelerometer (such as a micro machined type) with a conventional magnetic pick-up (such as a reed contact, switched by a magnet at each wheel revolution), and to process the corresponding output signals by suitable means (such as a microprocessor), in the following way: 1) Measure the time duration of one wheel revolution, which is a function of the bicycle linear speed. 2) Measure the time difference between two successive wheel revolutions, which is a function of the bicycle linear acceleration. 3) Measure the output signal of the accelerometer (placed with its measurement axis along the direction of travel), which is a function of the bicycle linear acceleration and of the component of the acceleration of gravity along the measurement axis. 4) Compensate the output signal of the accelerometer by subtracting the effect of the bicycle linear acceleration, as obtained from the measurement described at point 2), in order to extract the component due to the gravity field only. 5) Process the said value of the gravity field component to compute the actual road gradient. 6) Process the computed value of the road gradient, the bicycle linear speed, and the total mass of bicycle and cyclist, so as to obtain the value of the power being generated going uphill. 7) Process the computed value of the road gradient, together with the value of the distance measured by counting the wheel's revolutions, to periodically compute and update the value of the total distance covered in the vertical direction, i.e.: the relative altitude with respect to the starting point. 8) Process the output signal of the accelerometer in order to extract the frequency of the modulation noticeable on top of it, and corresponding to the frequency of pedalling. Figure 1 schematically represents the working principle of the device. It also shows the actual prototype The prototype was realised using a commercial accelerometer, the ADXL202 from Analog Devices, built on a single monolithic IC, and suitable for battery powered applications. The magnetic pick-up is of the conventional type, based on a reed contact closed (or opened) when a magnet fixed to the wheel passes by. The microprocessor measures the time interval, T , between two passes of the magnet, and therefore it can compute, by knowing the wheel circumference, L , the bicycle speed. Processing the time difference between two adjacent revolutions, also the bicycle linear acceleration, α , can be computed. Let us now suppose, for simplicity, that the accelerometer measurement axis coincides with the direction of travel, then, said angle α corresponds to the road gradient and the output of the accelerometer will be proportional to g sinα - α . As α is computed by processing the signal from the magnetic pick-up, the contribution due to the gravity field only, g sinα , can easily be extracted, and hence also the true road gradient 100 tgα (in degree %). In practice it is very difficult to make sure that the accelerometer main axis coincides with the direction of travel, due to the inevitable fact that when mounting the devices at a suitable position on the bicycle one always introduces an offset angle. To compensate for this the device allows for a specific calibration procedure: in a location where the road gradient is larger than 0%, select the calibration menu, select the mounting offset calibration function, position the bicycle uphill, press the required button, wait till the display indicates that the uphill reading is completed, position the bicycle downhill, press the required button, wait till the display indicates that the downhill reading is completed. Dividing by 2 the difference of the two readings, the microprocessor is then able to compute the offset angle, and hence compensate for the fact that the accelerometer measurement axis does not coincide with the direction of travel. Furthermore one has also to consider that when cycling the output signal of the accelerometer varies due to the effect of vibrations and oscillations caused by road unevenness or by movements of the cyclist, these variations in the output signal shall be filtered out in some way. In practice, it has been verified that a very effective way to filter out all these spurious signals consists in averaging all the samples taken over a time interval of about 10s. In particular, the prototype showed a very satisfying behaviour when the display indications were updated every second, but with the mean value of all the samples taken during the about 10s (meaning: the value closest to 10s, but corresponding to an integer number n of wheel revolutions) preceding the current refreshing of display indications Knowing the value of the true road gradient, and of the time duration of each wheel revolution, allows the computation of the power generated by the cyclist. As a matter of fact, when travelling uphill most of the mechanical work generated goes into increasing the gravitational potential energy of the total mass, M , of cyclist plus bicycle, and this because the part dissipated by mechanical friction, rolling friction, and aerodynamic drag, becomes typically negligible at road gradients larger than about 5%. Though this is an indirect method of measuring power, its accuracy is more than sufficient to allow the verification of training fitness described above. Finally, said n the number or wheel revolutions counted during the mentioned filtering time interval of around 10s, and for road gradients larger than about 5%, the microprocessor computes the mean power, P, generated along the previous stretch of length nL as (here for g sinα it is meant the mean value over the said about 10s) where the T i are the time durations of each one of the n wheel revolutions counted along the stretch nL . As said above, the method described by equation (1) is perfectly suitable for a verification of somebody's training fitness, when the fitness test is carried out on roads with gradient larger than about 5%. It is also obvious that it would not yield any useful indication of power on flat roads, when most of the mechanical work goes into frictions and aerodynamic drag. However, it is possible to obtain a reasonable indication of generated power also when travelling along flat roads. To this purpose a special calibration procedure has been developed: travelling along a stretch of constant gradient, such as for example a flat road, the cyclist stops cycling and presses a button on the device, at that instant the microprocessor records the actual value of the speed, V1 ; when a suitable number of seconds t have elapsed, and during which the cyclist should refrain from cycling, a second reading of speed, V2 , is automatically carried out by the microprocessor; Let us now indicate with Fp the component along the direction of travelling of the total weight cyclist + bicycle ( Fp is M g sinα , and of course along flat roads it would be Fp=0 ), the overall force resulting from all resistances to motion, due to frictions and aerodynamic drag, can be approximated by; F=(M(V1-V2) / t)-Fp (2) The microprocessor takes care to repeat this procedure for different values of V1 , in order to build some reference table or some calibration function, useful to extrapolate the total resistance to motion at any speed F(V) . In this way it becomes possible to improve the accuracy of the computed power, at any speed V , by adding the corrective factor: dP = V F(V) (3) and obtaining in this way also the possibility to display a reasonable estimate of the power generated, even when travelling along flat roads. The knowledge of sinα allows the computation of the total distance travelled in the vertical direction, or relative altitude, H . The prototype has demonstrated a very accurate indication of H , when its value is updated every about 10s (also here it is meant: the value closest to 10s, but corresponding to an integer number n of wheel revolutions), so as to refresh the value of the following running sum: The prototype was tested on a road of known altimetry, yielding an error of only +10m, over an actual height difference of 493m. The frequency of pedalling is another training parameter considered useful by cyclists, and in the already existing commercial types it is usually obtained by mounting a dedicated magnetic pick-up to count pedal revolutions. For the solution described here a filtering algorithm was developed, which can extract the frequency of the oscillations noticeable on the accelerometer output signal, and resulting from the push on the pedals by part of the cyclist. In this way no additional sensors are needed, hence simplifying the practical use of the device. The gear ratio can also be indicated, being simply the ratio: frequency of pedalling/wheel revolutions frequency. The prototype included also the computation of functions typical of conventional cyclocomputers: total and partial distance, instantaneous speed, average speed, maximum speed, minimum speed, trip time duration, etc.

Claims: A bicycle inclinometer comprising: a wheel revolution sensor, such as a conventional magnetic pick-up; and a microprocessor; characterised in that an accelerometer is mounted on the bicycle with its measurement axis parallel to the direction of travel and is arranged for generating an output signal proportional to the total acceleration g=sinα-α along its axis; said microprocessor is arranged for processing the output signals of said wheel revolution sensor and of said accelerometer; compensating an offset angle between the accelerometer axis and the direction of travel, due to non ideal mounting of the device on the bicycle, by a calibration procedure requiring to point the bicycle uphill and then downhill or vice versa; dividing the difference of the two measurements by two and yielding the value of said offset angle; sampling the output signal of the accelerometer during a suitable time interval for obtaining a mean value of the total acceleration g=sinα - α and corresponding to an integer number of wheel revolutions, and of sufficient length to average out all disturbances due to vibrations and/or cyclist movements, computing the linear acceleration α by processing the signal from said wheel revolution sensor and, for best accuracy, also in coincidence with said integer number of wheel revolutions, isolating the sole gravity field components g sinα and computing the true road gradient α ; computing the power generated by the cyclist and computing the altitude relative to a starting location, previously chosen by the cyclist, from the computed mean of sin α at the end of each one of said averaging time intervals. A device as claimed in Claim 1, characterised in that the microprocessor is further arranged for measuring the power on road stretches with very small or null gradient by introducing a calibration procedure whereby the cyclist stops cycling, pushes a button, and while he refrains from cycling the microprocessor computes from the evolution of the bicycle deceleration the overall force F(V), V being the bicycle speed, resulting from all motion resistances, such as frictions and aerodynamic drag and correcting the measured power generated by the cyclist by using said resulting force F(V) and by adding the factor dP = V*F(V) . A device as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, characterised in that the microprocessor is further arranged for extracting the frequency of oscillations noticeable on the accelerometer output signal and resulting from the push on the pedals by part of the cyclist by adding a suitable algorithm; indicating the frequency of said oscillations on the display as frequency of pedalling and indicating the gear ratio as "frequency of pedalling"I"wheel revolutions frequency" .

Inventors: GHISLANZONI LUCA, GHISLANZONI, LUCA
Applicants: GHISLANZONI LUCA, GHISLANZONI, LUCA
Application year: 2000
Main classification: G01C22
IPC codes: A63B24, A63B69, G01C22, G01C9, G01C5