Dynamic Mobility with Single-Wheel Configuration

Abstract

This paper presents a novel concept of mobility that provides dynamic stability and rapid locomotion. The concept, called Gyrover, is a single-wheel, gyroscopically stabilized robot that can be considered as a single wheel actuated by a spinning flywheel attached to a two-link manipulator at the wheel bearing and drive motor. The spinning flywheel acts as a gyroscope to stabilize the robot, and it can be tilted to achieve steering. This configuration conveys significant advantages over multiwheel, statically stable vehicles, including good dynamic stability and insensitivity to attitude disturbances, high maneuverability, low rolling resistance, ability to recover from falls, and amphibious capability. In this paper, the authors present the robot concept, three prototypes of the design, and system implementation. The authors study the robot’s nonholonomic constraints and the stabilizing effect of the flywheel on the system through simulation and experiments.