Experimental Study on the Safety of an Inverted Pendulum Vehicle during Automatic Turning

Abstract

The ultimate goal of this research is to safely apply automatic driving to Personal Mobility Vehicles (PMVs), which are personal transportation vehicles. One of the problems in applying automatic driving to an inverted pendulum vehicle is that the vehicle requires posture stabilization control at all times. It is important to understand the dynamic motion of the driver during automatic driving. In this paper, we experimentally understand the driver's response during automatic turning. The behavior of the driver of an inverted pendulum type vehicle during manual and automatic turning was investigated. The displacement of the driver's COG in the x-axis (front-back direction) was found to move backward during turning and decelerate the vehicle. On the other hand, the displacement of the COG in the y-axis (lateral direction) was found to move in the opposite direction of the turning direction due to the centrifugal force acting on the driver during the turn under the automatic turn condition. As for the COP, it was found that the driver maintained balance during the turn by moving the inside foot more inwardly and the outside foot more outwardly.