Switching Control in Two-Wheeled Self-Balancing Robots

A two-wheeled self-balancing robot is a statically unstable non-linear system with strong coupling dynamics. Common practices in the development of control systems for such robots are either to linearise the region of application to be used with linear controllers or to use complex nonlinear controllers such as Fuzzy logic, Sliding Mode, and Neural Networks. Nonetheless, in this paper, we are proposing a novel to this field concept of switching control that would adjust its approach depending on the evaluation of the current states. The performance of the proposed controller was assessed against exemplary solely linear and solely non-linear controllers in simulated tests. The tested were evaluated against dynamic criteria (distance traveled, max. angular deviation, etc.), control criteria (settling time, % overshoot, etc.), and environmental criterion of energy consumption. The results showed an interesting behavior of the proposed controller, with superior performance in many cases.