Balancing Robots

Balancing robots have recently gained popularity with the introduction of the commercial Segway vehicle [Segway 2006]; however, many similar vehicles have been developed before. Most balancing robots are based on the inverted pendulum principle and have either wheels or legs. They can be studied in their own right or as a precursor for biped walking robots (see Chapter 11), for example to experiment with individual sensors or actuators. Inverted pendulum models have been used as the basis of a number of bipedal walking strategies: [Caux, Mateo, Zapata 1998], [Kajita, Tani 1996], [Ogasawara, Kawaji 1999], and [Park, Kim 1998]. The dynamics can be constrained to two dimensions and the cost of producing an inverted pendulum robot is relatively low, since it has a minimal number of moving parts.