Meet Ballbot
Ballbot is a robot, a little shorter than a human, which balances on a metal ball about the size of a football. It was created at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh by Ralph Hollis, who is hoping to develop a robot capable of performing tasks such as moving objects in confined spaces.
In the screenshot above (click to watch the video), you can see the drive-belt on the right for one of the two rollers which drive the ball, so that the robot can keep its balance or roll the ball to move about.
August 14th, 2006 at 19:08:15
It’s just not that cool.
It’s not the first inverse mouse-ball drive system.
They use an OTS IMU, which grealty simplifies the process.
The controller might as well be the subject of an undergraduate student thesis project or MAYBE a homework assignment for a masters level controls class. It’s a simple LQR loop with a small inner experimentally-tuned PI loop to correct for frictional effects. Of course, input dynamics have been omitted, and that’s one of the major reasons why this controller works well to stabilize the ballbot on most surfaces but can only follow straight lines on carpet.
This does not deserve the attention it’s getting. It’s a 2D inverted pendulum. People need to get over it.