Velocity control of mobile wheeled inverted pendulum

Abstract

The mobile wheeled inverted pendulum (MWIP) is widely used in many robotic applications and also paid attention by theorists due to its essentially unstable dynamics. The equilibrium control and velocity control of a mobile wheeled inverted pendulum are discussed in this paper. Based on the three-dimensional (3D) dynamic model of this underactuated system running on the flat ground derived by Lagrange’s motion equation, a terminal sliding mode control (TSMC) is proposed to ensure the underactuated system can be self-balanced and variables converge to desired states. The proposed controller can guarantee the system both stays at the equilibrium and tracks a given yaw angle while LQR controller can only stay the MWIP system at equilibrium. Numerical simulations are provided to verify and illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and controllers.