A Self-Balanced Essboard-like Mobile Robot – Essbot

With the rapid development of robotics technology, balance and motion control of specific unicycle and two-wheeled vehicles have become achievable, and wheeled self-balanced mobile robots can be developed. Essboard is a wheeled vehicle, having different instability from an ordinary two-wheeled vehicle because of its two wheels that are arranged at the front and rear side. However, there is still a lack of relevant research on its balance control, so at present, it cannot be developed into a self-balanced two-wheeled mobile robot. In order to solve this problem, in this paper, a design concept of developing the Essboard into a two-wheel self-balanced robot Essbot by decomposing its motion is proposed for the first time. Besides, we develop and fabricate the Essbot, and propose its balance and motion control methods. Furthermore, the correctness and effectiveness of the designed Essbot and the proposed balance and motion control methods are verified by virtual prototype technology. Finally, the influence of different control laws on the Essbot’s motion is studied for the first time. The research results in this paper represent significant progress in the field of wheeled self-balanced robot and Essboard, and this is the first realization of the development of Essboard into a new type of two-wheeled self-balanced mobile robot.