Performance of a two wheeled robot with extendable intermediate body on irregular terrains

A new structure of two-wheeled vehicle with an extendable intermediate body (IB) is investigated in this paper. The robot design offers an additional feature to the conventional inverted pendulum on two wheels. The IB of the robot is composed of two co-axial parts connected by a linear actuator and with a payload attached to the end of the upper part. The linear actuator allows the payload to move up and down along the IB of the robot. Considering various positions, speeds and different sizes of a payload, carried by the robot, while maintaining upright balance is the main objective of the current study. To develop a robust vehicle that is able to drive and manoeuvre on irregular terrains is an important aspect of this field. The ability of the vehicle to adapt to different terrains allows a variety of mobility solutions to be developed using the vehicle as a basis. Furthermore, the simulations would give a measure of how robust is the vehicle to work on different environments in the real life. In this paper, various simulation scenarios are presented that incorporates the variation of the surface characteristics in terms of the friction and payload movement behaviour.