An intelligent embedded system for self-balancing personal transporter

Abstract

Robotic mobility technologies have become more and more popular over the past few years. The inverted pendulum model based robot is one of them. Two-wheeled inverted pendulum model based robot has a small footprint, and it can be used on various terrains. However, such robot is hard to be balanced. This project investigated the techniques involved in balancing such an unstable two-wheeled robotic platform. The objective is to design and implement a discrete digital control system that will provide the unstable robot ability of self-balance.

A physical two-wheeled robot was designed and implemented by using an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a microcomputer and two DC motors. A sensor fusion technique was used to combine multiple sensors information and eliminate noise. APID controller was implemented to control the system balancing. A wireless communication interface was implemented to allow the robot communicate with a PC and was monitored by the researcher.