Control of nonholonomic robotic load

Abstract

Powerball® is a commercial name for gyroscopic device that is marketed as a wrist exerciser. The device has rotor with two unactuated degrees of freedom and can be actuated with suitable rotational motion of human or robot wrist axis [1]. After substantial initial rotor’s spin, the properly applied torque and motion about two wrist axis lead to spin-up of the rotor. Finding this torque intuitively is easy job for most peoples, but not so easy for technical consideration for example in robotics.