Design and control of a holonomic robot that balances on single spherical wheel

Abstract

In this paper, the prototype of new type of robot that balances on single spherical wheel is described. This type of robot is called “Ballbot” and it is a dynamically stable mobile robot that unlike other statically stable robots can have a high center of gravity and a small footprint. Presented robot utilizes omni-directional wheels to move robot in any direction. In the beginning theoretical informations about balancing robot were given. In the second part, mechanical construction was presented and the most important elements of the structure were described. Next, the design concept of controller based on STM32 family and control algorithms were proposed. Then, the executed construction was presented and the results are collated. Finally, the investigation results were presented and discussed.