Self-balancing and position control using multi-loop approach for ball robots

This paper presents a multi-loop control approach for dynamic modeling, self-balancing and position control of a ball robot (Ballbot) with inverse mouse-ball driving mechanism actuated by two independent brushless motors simultaneously. A completely non-decoupling dynamic model of the robot incorporating with viscous and static frictions is derived using Newtonian mechanics. Two multi-loop controllers are then proposed to accomplish robust self-balancing and position control (regulation) of the robot with exogenous disturbances. Computer simulations and experimental results are conducted for illustration of the effectiveness of the proposed control method.