2016 American Control Conference (ACC)
Boston Marriott Copley Place
July 6-8, 2016. Boston, MA, USA
Design and Control of an Electrically Assisted Kick Scooter
Matteo Corno, Fabio Busnelli, Sergio M. Savaresi
Abstract— Traffic congestion, energy efficiency and environmen-
tal issues are fueling the interest in Light Electric Vehicles
(LEV’s). Electric Human-Powered Hybrid vehicles show a great
potential: they are cost effective, safe, easy to use and have a
small footprint. In this paper, we discuss an electrically assisted
kick scooter. Electric scooters are common on the market
but, being throttle-controlled, they sit in a legislative gray
area between human powered vehicles and electric vehicles.
The proposed design solves this issue by designing a genuine
electrically assisted scooter. The proposed design does not have
any human machine interface but controls the electric assistance
in a transparent way. The user only needs to kick the scooter
as she would do with a normal scooter and the control system
smoothly delivers the assistance. The proposed solution is based
on a kick detection algorithm and a closed-loop control of the
vehicle velocity. The details of the control system are discussed
in the paper and an extensive experimental validation shows
that the electric assistance cuts in half the effort necessary to
operate the vehicle with a battery consumption of 4 Wh/km
(half that of an electrically assisted bicycle).
I. I NTRODUCTION AND M OTIVATION
The need for reducing pollution and improving city mobility
is propelling the research into alternative mobility modalities.
Car powertrain electrification (or hybridization) is a common
approach that has received attention. It has been shown to
be viable for medium-to-long driving range: electric vehicles
improve efficiency and reduce emissions. However electric
cars do not address the problem of mobility and congestion
especially critical in European cities. Light transports that
also have a small footprint are necessary. As a matter of
fact, small electric vehicles are becoming more and more
common for short driving ranges. Small electric vehicles
still have one main drawback: in most countries they require
some sort of driving permit, registration, insurance and a
helmet. These small nuisances, required to guarantee safety,
are disincentivizing the use of small electric vehicles. The
price for a street legal electric scooter could be as low as
2500 euros, but one could then need to account for insurance
costs up to 400 euros/years in some cities. This limitation
is addressed by Electric Human-Powered Hybrid vehicles.
This kind of vehicles does not require a registration (under
most legislations) as they are powered by the human in a
very intuitive way: the electric motor assist the user and help
reduce the physical exertion. In the past few years, Electri-
cally Power Assisted Bicycles (EPAC’s) are experiencing a
considerable commercial success [16]. They cost less than
an electric scooter and do not have any mandatory insurance
cost. This success has also fueled a deal of research into
Corno, Busnelli and Savaresi are with the Dipartimento di Elettronica,
Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da
Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy. matteo.corno@polimi.it
978-1-4673-8682-1/$31.00 ©2016 AACC
Electric Human-Powered Hybrid (see for example [4], [6]–
[8], [11]–[13], [15]). EPAC’s are a very effective solution for
short range commute, but they are not well-suited for mixed-
transportation modalities: for example, one could use the
train system to get to the city and may still need a convenient
vehicle to cover the last mile. EPAC’s are bulky and heavy
and cannot easily be carried on a train during rush hours.
This paper addresses this issue presenting an electrically
assisted vehicle suitable as a last mile means of transporta-
tion. In order to achieve this objective the vehicle needs to
achieve two objectives 1) it needs to be less bulky than a
bicycle 2) it needs be an electrically assisted vehicle and
not an electrically powered vehicle. The kick scooter is an
interesting candidate: it is light, small and foldable. Many
electric kick scooters are already available on the market.
The available kick scooters do not however fulfill the second
requirement ( [2], [10]). In these vehicles, the electric motor
is controlled by a throttle, thus making them legally electric
vehicles. In many countries, this subtle difference is being
overlooked by traffic officers, but it is expected that, as
these vehicles gain popularity, the rules will be more strictly
applied.
The proposed design avoids the risk of being mistakenly
classified as an electric vehicle avoiding the use of a throttle.
The control system detects each kick and assists the rider
by extending each kick’s reach. The proposed system does
not have any external human-machine interface: it does not
have a throttle, nor activation buttons nor switches. This
guarantees that from the rider point of view the scooter is
operated and feels like a traditional scooter. The net effect
is however that of reducing the rider’s fatigue and effort.
From the control point of view the challenges involved
in designing a control system for this kind of vehicle are
superior than those involved in EPAC’s. Matter-of-factly, in
EPAC’s, human power is applied in a continuous and smooth
fashion; in the kick scooter the human power is impulsive.
This calls for a completely different control architecture.
The paper is structured as follows: in Section II, the exper-
imental set-up is described and modeled. In Section III, the
challenges of designing a control system for an impulsive
vehicle are discussed and addressed. In Section IV, the
vehicle is validated on a real last mile use profile and the
reduction in physical effort is shown. Section V concludes
the paper. Part of the methods described in this paper are
object of a patent [5].
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 II. E XPERIMENTAL SET- UP AND M ODELING
Figure 1 represents a prototype of the vehicle under study. A
where the vehicle is assumed to be driving on a flat surface.
M is the total vehicle + rider mass, v is the vehicle velocity,
(α, β, γ) are the parameters describing the road, gear and
aerodynamic friction, Ke is the motor current constant, r
the wheel radius and Fbrake is the force applied through
the friction brakes. The model depends on a number of
parameters and an unknown input (the braking force). Some
of the model parameters are directly measured: M r and Ke .
The friction parameters are identified using a coasting down
experiment: the scooter is manually accelerated to a velocity
of 15 km/h and let slow down without any braking from
the brakes nor the motor. Figure 2 shows the results of the
coasting down experiment. Given the relatively low velocities

-0.05
measurement
linear fitting
-0.1 quadratic fitting

acceleration [m/s ]
2
-0.15

-0.2

-0.25
Fig. 1. The assisted kick scooter prototype.
-0.3
commercially foldable kick scooter frame has been employed 0 1 2 3 4 5
speed [m/s]
and equipped with an all-in-one EPAC kit. The scooter is
equipped with: Fig. 2. Scooter coasting down experiment.

• A brushless motor. The motor delivers a nominal power
of 250 W. The motor is rigidly fixed to the wheel,
so that it always spins at the velocity of the wheel
(and consequently the velocity of the motor is statically
related to the velocity of the vehicle).
• A custom made Electric Control Unit (ECU). The ECU
implements the high level control algorithm and the
low level motor drive control. It also has bluetooth
that the vehicle reaches, the quadratic term due to the aero-
dynamic drag is dominated by the viscous friction (bearing
friction) and the static friction (tyre rolling friction). Figure
3 plots the validation of the model when the motor current
tracks a triangular wave. The simulated velocity matches the
5
motor current [A]

4
connectivity.
3
• Battery Pack. A relatively small 30 V (160 Wh) Li-ion
2
battery pack. The battery pack is equipped with a Bat-
tery Management System (BMS); which, among other 1

safety related checks (single cell voltage, temperature 0

and over-current), runs a Kalman-based SoC estimation 45 50 55 60 65 70 75

5
algorithm [14]. measured
• A wireless brake switch. The switch sends a signal to 4.5 simulated
speed [m/s]

the ECU whenever the brake is pulled. This enables 4

to cut assistance off every time the brake is pulled (as
3.5
required by the relevant legislation)
• A Mio Global wrist Heart Rate Monitor. This sensor is 3
connected to a smartphone. It is employed for validation
2.5
and analysis purposes and not for control. 45 50 55 60 65 70 75
time [s]
In the context of this work, the main objective is that of
providing assistance along the longitudinal direction; thus Fig. 3. Scooter coasting down experiment.
the vehicle dynamics can be modeled as:
Ke measured one with a satisfactory accuracy. The identification
M v̇ = −αv 2 − βv − γ + i − Fbrake (1) and validation experiments have been performed on a flat
r
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asphalt road; naturally it has been found that the results will
vary if the scooter is ridden on a different surface and - to
a lesser extend - by a different rider. The control presented
in the what follows will account for this variability so to
guarantee an adequate level of robustness.
III. K ICK S COOTER C ONTROL
The main objective of the controller is that of operating the
motor so that it extends the reach of each single push. The
rationale is that the motor should never cause an acceleration
greater than what the rider could achieve on a traditional
scooter; the motor can only reduce the deceleration. This
guarantees a greater safety. The task is made difficult by
two issues: 1) the controller cannot rely on any direct
input from the rider. 2) The way in which the human
traction power is transmitted to the ground is impulsive
by nature, thus the control algorithms devised for assisted
bicycles cannot be directly applied to this case. In order to
achieve this objective, the controller is organized in several
modules as shown in Figure 4. In the schematics, the vehicle
Fig. 4. Scooter coasting down experiment.
block represents the scooter dynamics. The ax estimation
block simply estimates the vehicle longitudinal acceleration
through numerical differentiation of the wheel velocity. R is a
closed-loop velocity controller; the velocity reference block
generates a suitable reference velocity. The kick detection
block determines whether to activate the velocity control
and thus the assistance. In the following the most important
subcomponents are detailed out.
A. Kick Detection
As the name implies, the goal of the kick detection module is
that of determining when the rider is pushing the vehicle. The
task is made difficult by the characteristic of the propulsion.
In a normal kick event, the rider imparts the forward force
by extending her leg backward. When the rider extends the
leg, the foot makes contact with the ground and the force is
transmitted to the vehicle. After this phase, the leg is usually
retracted to be parallel to the leg that supports the rider’s
weight. This, since the mass of the rider is considerably
higher than that of the scooter, slows down the vehicle (total
momentum conservation). This phenomenon is depicted in
Figure 5. The figure shows a kick without any additional
assistance from the motor. The figure clearly shows that when
the vehicle is pushed the velocity sharply increases. After the
initial phase, the velocity drops very rapidly to then increase
again due to the movement of the rider’s leg and body. Note
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that no external force (nor tractive nor braking) is applied
after the velocity has reached its peak. If a passive scooter
feeling has to be preserved, the traction should be activated
only at the end of the sequence, not right after the velocity
peak. If motor was to be turned on right after the peak, the
vehicle would accelerate more than a passive scooter and
would loose its purely assistive nature.
In order to provide the correct feeling, the kick event is
divided into several different phases:
• pre-kick it precedes the sharp increase of velocity. The
rider is extending her leg but the foot has not come
into contact with the ground. The velocity increases as
a consequence of conservation of momentum.
• kick the leg is exerting a force against the ground and
the velocity sharply increases. Starting from this phase
the motor needs to be turned off, to avoid unwanted
accelerations.
• release the leg is retracted, the quick movement of the
leg slows down the vehicle.
• rebound the leg’s movement has now come to a stop
and is almost parallel to the other leg. As the leg slows
down, momentum is transferred to the vehicle which
accelerates.
• coasting-down the kick event is now complete and the
rider is fairly stable on the scooter, the scooter slows
down due to friction. The motor is operated to extend
this phase.
The above sequence of phases is detected using a finite state
machine represented in Figure 6. As it can be seen most
transitions are based on acceleration thresholds. Also note
that the brake switch has the authority to turn off assistance at
any time. The transition from pre-kick to kick deservers more
comments as it is the fundamental transition that activates a
cascade of important events. The transition is based on ∆v
14
13
12
11
speed [km/h]
10
coasting down
coasting down
9
rebound
pre-kick
release
8
kick
7
6
37.5 38 38.5 39 39.5 40
time [s]
Fig. 5. Analysis of a single push event.
computed as: Z t
12
∆v(t) = ax (t)dt

speed [km/h]
(2)
tstart
10
where tstart is the time instant at which the machine tran-
sitioned into the pre-kick phase. Instant by instant ∆v is reference
8 simulated
compared against a velocity dependent threshold. If ∆v is measured
greater than the threshold then the kick is confirmed. The 6
threshold is velocity dependent; in particular the threshold 150 2 4 6 8 10

decreases as the velocity increases; in this way the robustness

motor current [A]

of the algorithm is increased without loosing the capability of 10
detecting kicks at high speed. Matter-of-factly, the velocity
is more easily perturbed by disturbances at low speed than
at high speed. If a constant threshold were to be used, 5
this would either cause false or miss detections. Note that
∆v could also be computed as the difference between the 0
current velocity and the velocity at which the last transition 0 2 4 6 8 10
happened. The transition from kick to coasting down, which time [s]
happens if the rider does not retract the leg, is based on a Fig. 7. Closed-loop validation of the velocity controller.
similar condition.

B. Velocity Controller is moving. In order to provide a bump-less activation of the

controller, it is initialized at the steady state current required
The velocity controller is a standard closed-loop controller to move at the initial reference velocity of activation.
tuned on the identified dynamics. The controller is tuned
to achieve a closed-loop bandwidth of 0.2 Hz and a phase
margin of 30◦ . Sensitivity analysis shows that the controller C. Velocity Reference
is stable for a total mass ranging from 40 to 120 kg and a
The velocity reference generation simply generates a desired
tenfold variation of the viscous friction parameter identified
behavior for the coasting down. Different philosophies may
in Section II. Figure 7 plots the comparison between the
be applied to generare the reference velocity. Through trial
simulated and experimental results for a velocity reference
and error and users’ feedback, it was found that the most
step: the reference is accurately tracked as expected from
accepted reference is a linearly decreasing reference. In
design. It is interesting to note the behavior immediately after
particular, the slope of the reference is computed at the motor
the change of reference. The real vehicle exhibits an initial
activation time instant so that regardless of the initial velocity
behavior that is determined by the movement of the rider’s
the duration in time of each kick is the same. Figure 8 plots
body (who responds to the jerk). The model presented in II
the validation of the entire system after a single kick event.
does not account for this; the velocity controller is however
As it can be seen, the kick is correctly detected and the
robust to this phenomenon.
velocity tracked accurately without negatively affecting the
According to the operation principle explained above, the natural behavior of a kick.
velocity controller needs to be turned on when the vehicle
IV. VALIDATION

This section validates the proposed vehicle on a realistic

mission profile. In particular the data are analyzed from

16
velocity
15 reference
velocity [km/h]

14

13

12

11

10
52.5 53 53.5 54 54.5 55 55.5 56
time [s]

Fig. 6. Finite State Machine determining the kick event phases. Fig. 8. Closed-loop validation of the velocity controller.

5293
 20
average trip speed [km/h]
15
10
5 on a real road. If the coasting down is extended beyond
0
013 6 40
assistance level [%]
Fig. 9. Trip average velocity for different assistance levels.
the battery energy and rider’s effort points of view. A 2.5
km/h urban trip has been defined. The experiments have
been executed during the day on open public roads, thus
they account for traffic. The trip has been executed with
different settings: passive scooter (same set-up but without
any assistance) and 6 different levels of assistance indicated
as percentage. The assistance level is normalized between
a maximum duration of the coasting down of 1100 s and
a minimum of 45 s. For each setting 10 runs have been
repeated in order to account for the variability introduced by
the traffic. For each test all the relevant electric and kinematic
measures have been logged along with the riders’ heart rate.
The heart rate was logged also during a 10 minute rest period
after each run.
The riders were instructed to try and keep the same average
velocity with the different settings. Figure 9 plots the results
in terms of velocity. Although it is subject to a certain level
of variability, the average velocities are comparable. Note
that the one with the lowest velocity is the case without
assistance. In this case the riders could not keep up with
the target velocity. As the average velocities are similar, it is
interesting to consider the number of kicks required to cover
the 2.5 km/h trip. These are show in Figure 10. From the
300
250
number of kicks []
200
150
100
50
0 not accumulated. In this work, it is set at 100 BPM. q is
013 6 40
assistance level [%]
Fig. 10. Number of requires kicks for different assistance levels.
figure the following remarks are due:
• Even for a small level of assistance, the number of
required kicks is considerably reduced, from an average
level of 250 with no assistance to 122 with a 1%
assistance. This intuitively leads to a more pleasurable
riding experience.
• As the assistance level is increased the number of
required kicks decreases following a diminishing return
trend. This is explained by the fact the test is performed
a certain threshold, the advantage of that increase is lost
to the fact that the rider needs to slow down in order to
70 100 obey the traffic rules.
Another important aspect is the average energy consumption
of the vehicle. The average energy per km is represented in
Figure 11 as a function of the assistance level. A diminishing
8
battery consumption [Wh/km]
6
4
2
0
013 6 40 70 100
assistance level [%]
Fig. 11. Average energy consumption for different assistance levels.
return trend is observed also in this case. Note the 0%
level of assistance still consumes around 0.05 Wh/km for
powering logging and communication devices. In order to
better appreciate the absolute values shown in figure consider
that an EPAC’s can reach a battery energy consumption as
high as 8.5 Wh/km [1]; the assisted scooter tops at 6.5
Wh/km. Given the battery pack employed in the vehicle,
the vehicle has a range from 25 to 40 km, depending on the
level of assistance.
The analysis is concluded by considering a measure of rider’s
exertion or fatigue. Measuring fatigue is not an easy task [3];
however heart rate can be employed as a useful proxy for
fatigue [9]. In order to evaluate riders’ fatigue, the following
cost function is thus proposed:
(
0 HR(t) < HR ˜
JHR = Rt
˜ 2 ˜
0 q · (HR(t) − HR) HR(t) >= HR
(3)
where HR ˜ is a baseline heart rate under which fatigue is
70 100 a weight index that controls the penalty to high heart rate
vs low heart rate. Here q is set to 1/802. The heart rate is
known to have a slow dynamics [6], this means that even
after the end of the physical exertion, the subject needs a
rest period before her baseline is reached. This rest period
needs to be accounted in the evaluation of (3) in order to have
comparable results. Figure 12 plots the relationship between
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JHR and the average battery consumption The following
final remarks can be drawn from figure (1) The assistance
is very effective in reducing physical exertion. Even the
lowest level of assistance reduces JHR to almost half. (2)
JHR exhibits a linear trend with the average battery energy
consumption. There is a roughly linear exchange between
human exertion and battery energy.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
In the present paper an electrically assisted kick scooter is
presented. In particular, the focus is on the design of the
control system. The control system is designed to provide
an extremely intuitive user experience. The rider does not
need to operate throttles or switches, she only needs to kick
the scooter and the electric motor intervenes to assist her
effort automatically.
This objective is achieved by a control system organized
around three main elements: a kick detection algorithm,
a velocity reference generation and a closed-loop velocity
control. The heart of the control system is the kick detection
algorithm. It determines when to activate the assistance. In
designing the activation logic extra care has to be devoted to
guarantee that the normal behavior of the kick sequence is
preserved. The paper addresses this issue dividing the kick
event in several subsequent phases.
The proposed kick scooter is extensively tested and validated
in a human-in-the-loop setting. The analysis thus shows
the full potential of the proposed vehicle in a real urban
environment. In particular, three aspects are considered: the
number of kicks required to cover a given distance, the
average battery power consumption and the rider’s fatigue as
evaluated by heart rate measurements. The scooter is shown
to be able to reduce the number of required kicks to half as
well as the rider’s fatigue.
Additional work is being devoted to the complete integration
of the all-in-the-wheel kit so to avoid the need of the
bluetooth brake switch connection.
45
40
35
30
J HR [bpm 2]
25
20
15
10
5 management of an electric bicycle based on terrain preview and
0 (ACC), 2014, pages 3462–3467, June 2014.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Consumption [Wh/km]
Fig. 12. Rider fatigue index for different assistance levels.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank ZEHUS srl. sole owner of
the patent [5] in the persons of P. Lisanti and D. Berretta for
the technical support and to S. Gelmini and A. Mosconi for
managing the human-in-the-loop experiments.
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