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Robot Balances on a Single Spherical Wheel
dalangalma writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute have developed a new kind of robot called the Ballbot that balances on a steel ball. Using a mechanism similar to a ball mouse, the Ballbot uses rollers to drive its single, spherical wheel and balance in place or glide around the room. The promise of such dynamically stable robots is that they can be much taller without having to have a wide base, making them much more suitable for working with humans. They are also much more agile, since they can be pushed out of the way easily without falling over. You can read the press release or check out the project's web page when it recovers from traffic."
"single spherical wheel" = a ball
The promise of such dynamically stable robots is that they can be much taller without having to have a wide base, making them much more suitable for working with humans
Huh? How does thinner = autmatically "much more suitable"? I just don't get it. We're used to working with people, and that extends to their personal space, which is substantially larger than the person. Who says that human/robot 'synergy' has anything to do with how fat the robot is?
Nevermind that all that active movement to keep standing upright means lots of battery drain, and irritating/distracting movement to said humans. We find coworkers that tap pens on their desks annoying, but they think this will 'fly'?
Oh, when the battery runs out of juice, or a motor (or its controller) goes dead- hilarity ensues...
Please help metamoderate.
With a suitable suspension I don't see why they would not do fine on stairs. If the balancing algorithm is good, it should recover fine on each step. A little laser rangefinding could even allow it to know it was going down stairs and adjust accordingly. Certainly a dynamicly balanced bot would fair better than a 4-wheeler going down the same stairs. If I can ride a motorcyle down the stairs, my new robotic biroid overlords should not have a problem.
That's a nice system. There are some annoying limitations, though. It's tough to change the orientation of the robot, although you can handle that if you have a rotational joint further up so you can rotate the torso. Small diameter balls have the same problems as small diameter wheels - it's easy to get stuck in small depressions. That's why the Segway has such big wheels. And driving a sphere is always a tough problem mechanically. Most of the solutions have trouble with dirt accumulating on the drive wheels, which is why optical mice have replaced ball mice. It's possible to build a spherical electric motor, and that might be the way to go if this concept turns out to be useful.
It's good to see all this activity in self-balancing systems again, having worked on this around 1994-1995, and seen others working on it in the 1980s. Today, you can buy so much of what you need off the shelf, like good INS units. We used to waste too much time building custom stuff.
yes but can you get them to go UP the stairs?
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Yeah, but try going UP the stairs. That's a bit more of a problem.
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