Design of a Two-wheeled Balancing Mobile Platform with Tilting Motion

Abstract: Conventional two-wheeled balancing robots are limited in terms of turning speed because they lack the lateral motion to compensate for the centrifugal force needed to stop rollover. In order to improve lateral stability, this paper suggests a two-wheeled balancing mobile platform equipped with a tilting mechanism to generate roll motions. In terms of static force analysis, it is shown that the two-body sliding type tilting method is more suitable for small-size mobile robots than the single-body type. For the mathematical modeling, the tilting-balancing platform is assumed as a 3D inverted pendulum and the four-degrees-of-freedom equation of motion is derived. In the velocity/posture control loop, the desired tilting angle is naturally determined according to the changes of forward velocity and steering yaw rate. The efficiency of the developed tilting type balancing mobile platform is validated through experimental results.