A four-wheeled robot to pass over steps by changing running control modes

We have developed a robot called a ' structure type four-wheeled robot' which, with a simple structure, has ability to pass over a step. This robot has only one degree of freedom to change the body's structure and can run on four wheels (4-wheeled mode) or on two wheels like a wheeled inverted pendulum (2-wheeled mode). For the realization of stepping up and down, there are three difficult problems to be solved: stable control in 2-wheeled state, transfer from 4- to 2-wheeled mode (swing-up), and transfer from 2- to 4-wheeled mode (landing). The control method we have developed for a wheeled inverted pendulum is used to control the 2-wheeled state using the signal of a rate gyroscope. In this paper, we mainly discuss control methods for transfers from 4- to 2-wheeled mode and from 2- to 4-wheeled mode. Especially in the transfer from 4- to 2-wheeled state, we make effective use of the driving torque of the motor which change the body's structure. In the transfer from 2- to 4-wheeled state, we have investigated a control method for soft landing to minimize the touch-down impact of the robot which is nonholonomic system. By combining our control methods, we have realized an experiment of passing over a step successfully.