Two directions in. One direction out.
How It Works
Simplified illustration drawn from the patent figures. Not to scale.
A The vehicle moves
Overview: A wheel meets a dip in the road. The suspension lets the wheel drop and rise so the body stays level. That up-and-down travel is the motion the system uses.
Full detail: Road input displaces the wheel assembly; the relative displacement between wheel and chassis is the input to the collapsible frame, which is mounted in series with a shortened coil spring. Use the scrub control to move the wheel through a controlled road profile.
B Inside the assembly
Overview: Inside, a frame of three plates sits on a short coil spring. A lighter spring inside the frame lets it squeeze and stretch. Through the middle runs a shaft with two one-way clutches, each a kind of ratchet that lets the shaft spin only one way, and a generator at the end.
Full detail: 1. Top, center and bottom plates. 2. Frame biasing spring, lower rate than the replacement coil. 3. Shortened replacement coil spring. 4. Guide bars and sleeves, keeping the plates aligned as they travel. 5. Drive mechanism inserted into the hollow generator shaft. 6. First and second sprag clutch sets, mounted in opposition. 7. Flyweights. 8. Electrical generator or alternator. 9. Energy storage connection.
C Compression
Overview: The wheel rises. The frame squeezes shut, the lighter spring compresses, and the shaft is pushed through the first clutch. The clutch grips, and the generator shaft turns.
Full detail: Compression stroke. Because the biasing spring has a lower rate than the replacement coil, the frame is designed to collapse first. The drive mechanism's linear travel is converted to rotation at the first sprag drive; that clutch engages in its driving direction and transmits torque to the hollow generator shaft while the second clutch overruns.
D Expansion
Overview: The wheel drops back. The frame opens, the shaft comes back up, and the second clutch, mounted the opposite way, grips now. The generator shaft keeps turning in the same direction.
Full detail: Return stroke. As the frame re-expands, the second sprag drive engages while the first overruns. The sense of rotation at the generator shaft is preserved: two opposed one-way clutches rectify bidirectional linear motion into unidirectional rotation.
E Electrical generation
Overview: Spinning the generator moves magnets past coils of wire. That is electromagnetic induction, the principle behind nearly every power plant, and it produces electric current. The current is conditioned and sent to a battery or to the vehicle's electrical systems.
Full detail: Generator output is rectified and regulated by a power-conditioning stage before delivery to an energy-storage unit or load. The patent describes storage in one or more batteries and use by motors, accessories, brakes, or active-suspension components. The power-electronics architecture is conceptual at this stage and will be defined during bench testing.
F The full cycle
Overview: Up, down, up, down, and the generator shaft only ever turns one way. The flyweights keep it turning through the pauses. The road provides the motion. The system decides what happens to it.
Full detail: Full-cycle animation at the selected excitation. Flyweights add rotational inertia to carry shaft speed across clutch handover. Toggle the energy-trail overlay to see where energy enters (road input), where it is stored and returned (springs), where it is dissipated (friction), and where it is converted (generator). The trail shows pathways, not magnitudes: the share recovered is a measured quantity, not an animated one.
This demonstration shows the mechanism's pathways, not its performance. Output depends on road conditions, the vehicle, spring rates, and losses, and will be published here with its test data.
Open the patent
The Spinning Top Analogy
From motion in two directions to rotation in one.
The Vehicle Flywheel Concept
The vehicle is already moving. The question is what its motion is allowed to do.