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Armstrong Kinetic Solutions

Armstrong Kinetic Solutions

Supplying the world with an abundance of clean energy

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The idea

A New Way to See Energy.

01

Everywhere we look, the world is in motion.

A creek running over mossy stones, with clear water in the middle and white water at the right.

02

Water finds its level. Wind moves through the trees. A vehicle rises and settles over every mile of road it travels.

Feathery green leaves bent by the wind, with a blurred sea and cloudy sky behind them.

03

Beneath the familiar movement of vehicles, machinery, and the systems around us lies an opportunity to reconsider how energy is recovered.

Long, even swells moving across open blue water under a pale sky.

04

Much of the engineering world has concentrated on producing, distributing, storing, and consuming energy. We are interested in a quieter question.

A white SUV driving along a winding two-lane road through a green forest on an overcast day.

05

What if we looked at motion differently?

06

What useful energy could be recovered from motion that existing systems already experience?

Not all motion can be recovered usefully, and recovery is never free. The question is where it pays.

Step 1
stored, returned
Step 2
heatrecovery?
Step 3
Mechanical motionDissipated as heatUseful energy recovered
Step through the cycle

The opportunity

What happens to energy after the motion?

There are two ways to have more useful energy. Produce more of it. Or recover more of what is already there.

Producing energy means generation, distribution, and storage: power plants, grids, batteries. Recovering it means looking at the systems we already run and asking where their mechanical energy goes.

The suspension, in one breath

  1. 1As a vehicle travels, its suspension responds to every irregularity, vibration, and change in load. The wheel moves; the body is cushioned.
  2. 2The spring stores energy as it compresses and gives most of it back as it extends.
  3. 3The damper controls that motion by turning part of the energy into heat. That is its job. It is also where recovery becomes interesting.

A portion of that mechanical energy could, in principle, be converted into useful electrical output instead of heat. How much, under what road conditions, and at what cost in mass and complexity are engineering questions, and they are the questions AKS is organized to answer.

The vision

One idea. Many possibilities.

Springs oscillate. Structures vibrate. Machines repeat the same motions millions of times. Wherever motion is already happening, there may be useful energy worth asking about. These are the places we intend to look, in time, and with care about what the physics allows.

  1. ACTIVE FIRST PRODUCT

    Automotive transportation.

    Passenger cars, pickups, fleet electric vehicles, and heavy trucks all carry suspensions that move over every mile. This is where AKS begins, with the Armstrong Kinetic Regenerative Suspension.

  2. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION

    Marine systems.

    Hulls, mounts, and moorings move with every swell. Wave-energy developers already tune springs to the rhythm of the sea; the question is where related principles apply aboard vessels and on offshore structures.

  3. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION

    Industrial machinery and infrastructure.

    Presses, compressors, conveyors, and the structures that carry them vibrate by design or by consequence. Much of that motion is currently damped into heat.

  4. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION

    Robotics and automation.

    Legged and mobile robots spend energy on every step and cushion every landing, and battery life is often the limiting constraint. That makes recovery worth studying.

  5. EXPLORATORY

    Further mechanical energy-recovery opportunities.

    Rail, aerospace, seismic protection, and other systems where springs and dampers do their work. We list these as questions, not products.

Status labels show how far along each direction is. One of these is a product in development today; the rest are directions for research.

Every vision begins somewhere. Ours begins with suspension.

Our first solution · U.S. Patent 12,409,695 B2

The Armstrong Kinetic Regenerative Suspension

A suspension-integrated generator designed to convert part of a vehicle's suspension movement into useful electrical energy while it drives.

The Armstrong Kinetic Regenerative Suspension pairs a shortened coil spring with a patented collapsible frame stacked in series with it. Inside the frame, a lighter biasing spring is designed to let the frame compress and expand with the first inches of suspension travel. That travel drives a shaft through a pair of one-way sprag clutches arranged in opposition, so the shaft turns the same direction whether the suspension is compressing or extending. The shaft spins a generator. Flyweights help carry the rotation through the pause between strokes.

The objective is simple to state and demanding to prove: generate electricity during driving that can be supplied to onboard electrical systems or energy storage, and determine whether doing so improves an electric vehicle's overall efficiency and charging behavior on the road.

See how it worksRead the patent

What it is

PATENTED

A vertically collapsible three-plate frame; a frame biasing spring; a shortened replacement coil spring; guide bars and sleeves; a drive mechanism inserted into a hollow generator shaft; opposed one-way sprag clutches; flyweights; an electrical generator with an energy-storage connection. All as described in U.S. Patent 12,409,695 B2.

What it could do

DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Supply useful electrical energy to vehicle accessories or storage during driving. Help answer whether suspension energy recovery can improve EV efficiency and charging behavior. Determine the system's effect on ride quality, and whether its rotating assembly can be tuned to help rather than hurt it.

What we know today

STATUS

Patent granted September 9, 2025. Machined prototype components received July 2026. A generator is still needed to complete the prototype setup. Bench testing is planned, with a target to begin by the end of 2026. No performance figures are published yet; they will appear here, with their test conditions, when they exist.

Most regenerative-suspension approaches recover energy at the damper. The AKS arrangement is built around the spring: a collapsible frame in series with a shortened coil, driven through opposed one-way clutches into a generator shaft that only turns one way.

Vehicle Suspension Energy Reclamation Generator · U.S. 12,409,695 B2 · Inventor: Larry D. Armstrong · Granted September 9, 2025 · 18 claimsView the patent

Two generations. One pursuit.

It began with a bicycle on a hill. Years later, with paper spinning tops in a fifth-grade classroom.

Larry Armstrong began inventing at eleven. Decades later, his great-nephew Avery was selling handmade spinning tops in an Oklahoma classroom. They followed different paths, one through invention and the other through entrepreneurship, until a winter-break visit brought them together around another spinning topper, a patent, and an idea worth pursuing.

Armstrong Kinetic Solutions is what they are building together.

A green grassy hillside under a blue sky, with a small red bicycle near the crest.
Illustrative image. Not a photograph of the event.
A walnut plaque with a congressional seal at the top and three brass plates. They read Division Champion, Larry D. Armstrong, and First Place, Small Business Division, Wes Watkins New Product and Process Fair, April 4, 1986.
First place, Wes Watkins New Product and Process Fair.

April 4, 1986

A business card for Perpet Hydro Tech, Hydraulic Hybrid Systems Research and Development, with a small tree and a vintage automobile, and the name Larry Armstrong, President. Contact details are blurred.
A business card from an earlier venture of Larry's.

Undated

A pile of colorful folded paper spinning tops, some marked with spirals and stripes in marker.
Paper spinning tops of the kind Avery sold in fifth grade.

Undated

Larry Armstrong and Avery Armstrong standing against a plain wall. Avery holds the first machined housing, a small assembly of metal plates and rods.
Larry and Avery with the first machined housing.

July 2026

Larry Armstrong and Avery Armstrong standing outdoors in front of a parked vehicle. Avery holds a small assembly of metal plates and rods, an early housing model.
Larry and Avery with an early housing model.

Undated

Our StoryMeet the Founders

Further in

The rest of the story, chapter by chapter.

  1. 06How It WorksTwo directions in. One direction out.
  2. 07The Spinning Top AnalogyFrom motion in two directions to rotation in one.
  3. 08The Generator and Sprag Clutch ExplainersThe parts, explained.
  4. 09The Vehicle Flywheel ConceptThe vehicle is already moving. The question is what its motion is allowed to do.
  5. 10Rethinking the ApproachA different mechanical approach to an important engineering opportunity.
  6. 11Two Generations. One Pursuit.Decades in the Making. Generations in Motion.
  7. 12Meet the FoundersComplementary abilities. One ambition.
  8. 13From Concept to RealityConcept complete. Patent complete. Prototype in progress. Bench validation planned.
  9. 14The PatentVehicle Suspension Energy Reclamation Generator, U.S. Patent 12,409,695 B2.
  10. 15Beyond the First InventionThe First Solution Is Only the Beginning.
  11. 16From the WorkshopNotes from the bench, the shop floor, and the road.
  12. 17Help Build What Comes NextThe Future of Energy Is Worth Building Together.

Mailing list

Follow the Development of AKS.

Occasional updates when there is something real to report: a prototype milestone, a test result, a patent development. You can leave with one click.

The long view

The First Solution Is Only the Beginning.

The Armstrong Kinetic Regenerative Suspension is the beginning of AKS's ambitions, not the extent of them. A company founded on one mechanical insight, that back-and-forth motion can be rectified into one-way rotation and recovered as useful energy, has reason to look wherever springs oscillate and motion is damped away.

The timing matters. Transportation is electrifying. Electricity demand is rising. Industrial systems are automating, and the growth of AI computing is adding a new and large demand on power grids. In that world, efficiency is not only a cost question; it is a capacity question. Every watt that is not wasted is a watt that does not have to be produced.

AKS's technical focus today is vehicle suspension. That is where the hardware exists and where the measurements will come from. As resources, engineering capacity, and intellectual-property funding permit, AKS intends to investigate energy recovery in other systems where motion is currently dissipated: in transportation, automation, infrastructure, and the mechanical systems that support an increasingly electricity-dependent world.

The next era of energy will be shaped not only by what we produce, but by what we learn to recover.