Active Balancing Using Gyroscopes for a Small Humanoid Robot

Abstract

This paper describes methods used in stabilizing the walking gait of TAO-PIE-PIE, a small humanoid robot given rate feedback from two RC gyroscopes. TAO-PIE-PIE is a fully autonomous small humanoid robot (30cm tall). Although TAO-PIE-PIE uses a minimal set of actuators and sensors, it has proven itself in international competitions, winning honors at the RoboCup and FIRA HuroSot competitions in 2002 and 2003. The feedback control law is based solely on the rate information from two RC gyroscopes. This alleviates drift problems introduced by integrating the RC gyroscope feedback in the more common position control approaches.