Self-Balancing System and Control Design for Two-Wheeled Single-Track Vehicles

Abstract

This study presents a novel approach to achieve self-balance by employing a proportional integral derivative (PID) control system. Simply put, the innovative design consists of two electric ducted fans (EDF) that propel air against the direction of fall and thereby maintain balance. If these motors are allowed to move in two degrees of freedom, the EDF motors will propel and reduce weight of the two-wheeler while maintaining stability. To the best of our knowledge, no study has proposed a system that simultaneously provides propulsion and weight reduction along with achieving self-balance. The working mechanism of the utilized PID arducopter controller is elucidated which utilizes an IMU sensor and employs a nonlinear complementary filter on the special orthogonal group to determine the lean angles at any instant of time and a feedback loop to maintain the system’s position at the desired upright zero degrees lean angle. Next, the proposed PID controller is first tested on a small-scale model to validate the developed concept to achieve self-balance by employing EDF motors. After achieving successful results on the small-scale model and thereby attaining the step of validation, the proposed concept is tested against a full-scale model (motorbike) by designing the mechanical and electrical parts. The methodology is divided into three major steps – mechanical parts design and manufacture, electrical components design and control system design. Furthermore, three mechanisms are designed to control steering, braking and throttle via a remote transmitter receiver control and autonomous control.