Position and Orientation Control of a Wheeled Inverted Pendulum

Abstract

A wheeled inverted pendulum (WIP), which is unstable, nonholonomic, and has two servo-driven wheels, is fabricated and used to confirm the proposed method for controlling its position and orientation. First, a WIP control system equipped with sensors such as a piezoelectric gyro to detect the tilt angle and two semiconductor photosensing devices to detect the position and orientation, is constructed. By using a distance variable, the system dynamics is decoupled and an optimal regulator with integral action is constructed to reduce the influence of disturbances. Algorithms are proposed to cope with the singularity problem included in the feedback control. Finally, the WIP is effectively controlled starting from various initial positions and orientations to a specified final state.