Balancing and translation control of a ball segway that a human can ride

Abstract

A ball segway, a ballbot-type robot that can carry a person is developed. The robot is of a sufficient size and has a car-like structure mounted on a single spherical tire with a seat that a human can ride. Based on the kinematic model of the ball segway, the full 3D dynamic model is simplified and decoupled into two orthogonal 2D dynamic models, where one is related sagittal motion and the other is related frontal motion, based on Lagrange equation and decoupling method. After linearizing dynamic model, two-loop control system is applied to each plane for control balancing, station keeping and transferring itself from point to point. Balancing and transferring performance of the ball segway is evaluated by experiments.