Lateral Movement Method of Inverted Two-wheeled Vehicles for Narrow Roads Using Pivot Turn

Abstract

In recent years, the declining birthrate and an aging population have become a serious problem in Japan. For this reason, the number of elderly people who have difficulty going outside is expected to increase. In addition, elderly people have difficulty dealing with modes of transportation such as cars and bicycles. To solve these problems, a small and easy-to-handle mobile robot, such as an inverted two-wheel vehicle is expected to be a useful device. However, the vehicle robot has difficulty moving along a path with a narrower width than that of the vehicle body. Therefore, in this paper, a trajectory planning method is proposed that makes it possible for vehicles to move laterally on narrow roads using a pivot turns in places where it is otherwise difficult to turn. The validity of the proposed method was evaluated experimentally.