Robot development using single stepper driver

Abstract

One of the important parameters for the development of specific robots is the mechanical stability of robots. Due to increased applications of robots in various fields such as marines, aerospace, biomedical, and so on, it has now become an important area of research. In this paper, the inverted pendulum concept was used to create a two-wheeled robot (TWR). To balance its vertical position, a Proportional Integrate Derivative (PID) controller was used. The TWR is made up of one Inertial Mass Unit (IMU) sensor, two stepper motors, an Arduino Nano microcontroller, and a stepper motor driver. Both motors were actuated by a single stepper driver in the developed design. Both motors were driven in opposite directions by a single stepper motor driver to ensure forward and backward motion of the robot. The IMU sensor was used to measure angular velocity along the pitch axis and acceleration along the other two axes. The measured data are used to calculate the inclination of TWR () with respect to its vertical position. Accelerometer data was used to compensate for gyro drifts using a complementary filter. With finely tuned PID constants, acceleration to wheels was provided as per inclination angle (). The performance of the developed TWR is found to be almost identical to that of an Arduino UNO-based Self-Balancing Robot [20], despite the fact that it has fewer components, is lighter, and costs less.