Related papers: An Uncontrolled Toy That Can Walk But Cannot Stand…
The physics of walking is explored, using a toy as a concrete example and a 'toy' model applied to it. Besides the Newton's second law, the problem is also discussed from the thermodynamical perspective. Once the steady state (constant…
This paper investigates the potential for stabilizing an inverted pendulum without electric devices, using gravitational potential energy. We propose a wheeled mechanism on a slope, specifically, a wheeled double pendulum, whose second…
The Mini Wheelbot is a balancing, reaction wheel unicycle robot designed as a testbed for learning-based control. It is an unstable system with highly nonlinear yaw dynamics, non-holonomic driving, and discrete contact switches in a small,…
Humans can balance very well during walking, even when perturbed. But it seems difficult to achieve robust walking for bipedal robots. Here we describe the simplest balance controller that leads to robust walking for a linear inverted…
The Segway is a popular self-balancing two-wheeled vehicle. In this paper, we present a control mechanism for the planar Segway problem. The open-loop analysis validates the fact that the system is unstable by default and there is a need to…
This paper presents the development of a new passive assistive handwriting device, which aims to stabilize the motion of people living with movement disorders. Many people living with conditions such as cerebral palsy, stroke, muscular…
Combining off-the-shelf components with 3D-printing, the Wheelbot is a symmetric reaction wheel unicycle that can jump onto its wheels from any initial position. With non-holonomic and under-actuated dynamics, as well as two coupled…
Many methods exist for a bipedal robot to keep its balance while walking. In addition to step size and timing, other strategies are possible that influence the stability of the robot without interfering with the target direction and speed…
Previous research on unstable footwear has suggested that it may induce plantar mechanical noise during walking. The purpose of this study was to explore whether unstable footwear could be considered as a noise-based training gear to…
This paper introduces FlipWalker, a novel underactuated robot locomotion system inspired by Jacob's Ladder illusion toy, designed to traverse challenging terrains where wheeled robots often struggle. Like the Jacob's Ladder toy, FlipWalker…
A walker is the association of a sub-millimetric bouncing drop moving along with a co-evolving Faraday wave. When confined in a harmonic potential, its stable trajectories are periodic and quantised both in extension and mean angular…
The task of self-balancing is one of the most important tasks when developing humanoid robots. This paper proposes a novel external balance mechanism for humanoid robot to maintain sideway balance. First, a dynamic model of the humanoid…
An "upward-driven disk" is a novel mechanical device built from LEGO parts. A circular disk is suspended from the point where it is sandwiched between two wheels, making it free to oscillate as a pendulum, but the location of that…
Although bipedal locomotion provides the ability to traverse unstructured environments, it requires careful planning and control to safely walk across without falling. This poses an integrated challenge for the robot to perceive, plan, and…
This paper presents a methodology to stabilize some kind of Nonlinear Control system known as Driftless, utilizing the concept of \textit{Pseudo-Kinetic Energy} introduced in this work. Once this controller is applied to the Unicycle-type…
Today, electric scooter is a trendy personal mobility vehicle. The rising demand and opportunities attract ride-share services. A common problem of such services is abandoned e-scooters. An autonomous e-scooter capable of moving to the…
Stable bipedal walking is a key prerequisite for humanoid robots to reach their potential of being versatile helpers in our everyday environments. Bipedal walking is, however, a complex motion that requires the coordination of many degrees…
Balance control is important for human and bipedal robotic systems. While dynamic balance during locomotion has received considerable attention, quantitative understanding of static balance and falling remains limited. This work presents a…
In this letter, we present a novel bi-modal bi-copter robot called Skater, which is adaptable to air and various ground surfaces. Skater consists of a bi-copter moving along its longitudinal direction with two passive wheels on both sides.…
Although there has been recent progress in control of multi-joint prosthetic legs for rhythmic tasks such as walking, control of these systems for non-rhythmic motions and general real-world maneuvers is still an open problem. In this…