Floris van Willigen successfully defended "Evaluation of the handling of a variable dynamics tilting tricycle". Floris used several measures of single track vehicle handling to assess multiple bicycles and leaning tricycles through hundreds of slalom and low speed line tracking tasks. After showing that his handling quality metric was able to differentiate and compare the vehicles he applied the methods to find the best configuration of our variable dynamics leaning tricycle, settling on a configuration that retains self-stability of the tricycle but still allows for bicycle carving. Using those findings he then used optimization to find a new design which allows for maximum roll motion but retains the same essential vehicle dynamics. Floris's method can be used as a general bicycle or leaning tricycle handling assessment.

Floris was co-supervised by Andrew Dressel (TU Delft & University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) and Jason K. Moore (TU Delft). ClickNL and Royal Dutch Gazelle supported this project via the Fiets van the Toekomst grant. Everyone at the bicycle lab is very proud of Floris and wishes him the best in his next adventures.