Design and prototype model for smart autonomous self-balancing bicycle

Abstract

There are still a huge demand for safe and sustainable modes of transport which has led to the creation of autonomous self-balancing bicycles. The design and analysis of the self-balancing bicycle with flywheel mechanism assisted by gyroscope is presented in this study. A Lagrangian approach was used to model the tilt dynamics; it includes kinetic energy, potential energy, damping and actuator torque generated by the BLDC motors. The nonlinear system was linearized around the upright equilibrium for control implementation and simulated in MATLAB. Results indicate that an initial lean disturbance is stabilized within about 1 s, and that the motor current also reaches steady state values, thus signifying efficient use of energy. The gyroscopic response trends corroborate the realistic tilt sensing and the effectiveness of the proposed stabilization framework is confirmed for autonomous operation on straight and curved paths.