An implementation of a gyro actuator for the attitude control of an unstructured object

It is well known that the attitude control of an object hanging with wire is not easy by using usual actuators. Even though an actuator such as a fan can be used for controlling the object it is difficult to meet the desired control objective. For these reasons, we propose a gyro actuator constructed with two motors. The first motor is responsible for spinning the wheel at high speed and the second motor is used to turn the outer gimbal. By applying the torque to the second motor, which results in the turn of the outer gimbal, the torque about the vertical axis can be obtained while the wheel of the gyro is spinning constantly. This torque is used to control the attitude of the object attached. The aim of this paper is to derive the transfer function of the actuator and show the usefulness. Experiments to the prototype model using a state feedback control and PID control are conducted to show the usefulness of the proposed gyro actuator.