MAE 506: Advanced System Modeling,

Dynamics and Control

Lecture 6
Reading in Williams and Lawrence text:
Section 1.4

Spring Berman
Fall 2014

Ballbot
Lauwers, Kantor, and Hollis. A Dynamically Stable Single-Wheeled
Mobile Robot with Inverse Mouse-Ball Drive. ICRA 2006

Robotics Institute at
Carnegie Mellon
University, 2006
Tohoku Gakuin
University, 2008

Simplifed Ballbot Model

Ball wheel is a rigid sphere
Body is rigid
Control inputs: Torques applied
between the ball and the body
No slip between the wheel and
the floor (no skidding)
Friction between wheel/floor and
wheel/body is modeled as viscous
damping
Can design a controller for full 3D
system by designing independent
controllers for 2 planar models

Simplifed Ballbot Model

Use Lagranges equations to
derive equations of motion
Total kinetic energy:
Total potential energy:
Lagrangian:

Simplifed Ballbot Model

Friction terms:
Euler-Lagrange equations:

Component of torque applied between ball and

body in direction normal to plane

Mass
matrix

Vector of
Coriolis and
centrifugal
forces

Vector of
Friction
gravitational terms
forces

Model in Nonlinear State-Space Form

Stabilizing Feedback Controller

Add a state variable:

LQR Control

Linearize Eqs of Motion, Apply LQR Control

References on Nonlinear Dynamics & Control

Slotine and Li, Applied Nonlinear Control, 1991
Sastry, Nonlinear Systems: Analysis, Stability, and
Control, 1999
Khalil, Nonlinear Systems, 3rd ed., 2001
Strogatz, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, 2nd ed.,
2014