This thing cannot brake effectively in an emergency, which severely limits its real-world usefulness - it will just roll. The only route out of that, that I can see, is counter-rotating something with a large moment of inertia. If that something is the passenger, it will be extremely uncomfortable; if the mass is e.g. a flywheel, it'll add significantly to overall mass, reduce efficiencies, and add to overall forward momentum.
A long downhill stretch will also completely beat it (if it wants to maintain a constant speed downhill). Any flywheel or other counter-rotation system will have to keep accelerating for as long as the hill continues, or else it will tumble.
A small 3rd wheel for emergency braking would work (it could even be automatically lowered when the chassis has rotated over a certain amount), or you could just drive only at slow speeds. The Segway is a diwheel as well, and people don't worry about that.
The Segway has a relatively large moment of inertia to act as counter-torque when braking - the big human body sticking out the top of it - along with gravity, where the centre of gravity of the inertial mass is well away from the axis of rotation. It also travels slowly (I think the Segway is a more viable product at the speeds it travels at than the device in this article, which IMO really needs to go faster to justify being strapped in etc.).
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This thing cannot brake effectively in an emergency, which severely limits its real-world usefulness - it will just roll. The only route out of that, that I can see, is counter-rotating something with a large moment of inertia. If that something is the passenger, it will be extremely uncomfortable; if the mass is e.g. a flywheel, it'll add significantly to overall mass, reduce efficiencies, and add to overall forward momentum.
A long downhill stretch will also completely beat it (if it wants to maintain a constant speed downhill). Any flywheel or other counter-rotation system will have to keep accelerating for as long as the hill continues, or else it will tumble.
A small 3rd wheel for emergency braking would work (it could even be automatically lowered when the chassis has rotated over a certain amount), or you could just drive only at slow speeds. The Segway is a diwheel as well, and people don't worry about that.
The Segway has a relatively large moment of inertia to act as counter-torque when braking - the big human body sticking out the top of it - along with gravity, where the centre of gravity of the inertial mass is well away from the axis of rotation. It also travels slowly (I think the Segway is a more viable product at the speeds it travels at than the device in this article, which IMO really needs to go faster to justify being strapped in etc.).
You can prevent it from rolling by just sticking something out of the cylinder.