Balancing control of a single-wheel robot considering power-efficiency and gyroscopic instability suppression

The lateral-balancing problem of a single-wheel based robot system has been presented. The basic configuration of the system uses the gyroscopic effect which generates the yawing force as a control input. The friction combined with yawing force enables a robot system to maintain the lateral balance. Although this horizontal configuration gives a better pitching stability to the body system, enough friction and momentum must be guaranteed to perform the successful control task. To make a power-efficient system, in this paper, rolling force-based control configuration, namely the vertical configuration is proposed. Although this configuration has a major disadvantage in its pitching instability problem, efficient power consumption can be achieved. The pitch instability suppression is suggested to improve the balancing control algorithm performance. Experimental studies confirm that the power-consumption has been dramatically reduced and the correctness of instability suppression algorithm is properly verified.