An Experimental Study on Smart Electric Bicycle with Weight Minimized Power Pack

Energy-efficient transport systems orientation including the uptake of electric vehicles provides socio-economic opportunities that generate multiplier effects for trade, employment, good quality of life, and improved health. Among many, electric bicycle (e-bicycle) is attracting significant attention worldwide due to its lightweight, compact design, and cheaper price than other electric vehicles. Many smart e-bicycle solutions have been advocated as important supportive tools to embrace e-bicycles but failed to continue the paradigm due to the weight of the bicycle has increased. This paper proposes a novel approach to design an electrically assisted bicycle prototype including hardware, power pack, and bicycle computer to control the motor using physiological information and the bicycle sensor data. The study presents the experimental results regarding fatigue detection based on heart rate, heart rate variability, bike speed data, cadence, and terrain data information for assisting the rider. Accordingly, the novelty of this study is to optimize the weight of the e-bicycle and implement a bicycle computer system to control the motor.