Experimental studies on roll control of a vertical configuration of a gimbal system inside a single-wheel robot

Balancing control of a single-wheel mobile robot is achieved by the gyroscopic force induced by a gimbal system. There are two configurations of the gimbal system, horizontal and vertical configuration, depending upon how to generate the gyroscopic force. The horizontal configuration is a conventional one used in one-wheel robot systems. This paper presents the novel vertical configuration of the gimbal system that consists of a flywheel, a flywheel motor, and a tilt motor. The vertical configuration of the gimbal system has advantages of less power consumption but disadvantages of easy instability over the horizontal configuration. The typical characteristics of the vertical configuration are verified through experimental studies of balancing control tasks.