A Spherical Mobile Robot Driven by Eccentric Pendulum and Self-stabilizing by Flywheel*

Aiming at the problem of insufficient stability of the existing spherical robot, a spherical robot driven by eccentric pendulums and self-stabilizing by flywheel is proposed in this paper. The robot is driven by the gravity shift of the pendulum and its stability is improved by flywheels rotating at high speed. This paper designed the structure of the robot and established a three-dimensional model in SolidWorks. After finishing the spherical robot prototype, its motion performance is verified by experiment. According to the experimental results, the maximum climbing angle of the spherical robot driven only by the eccentricity of the gravity pendulum is 7°, and the stability can be significantly improved when the flywheel is enabled. With fast braking of the flywheel, the robot can climb over the obstacles to the instantaneous climbing angle of 28° and move steadily in rugged terrain.