A Hopping Two-Wheeled Segway Robot

Defranco, Christian; Mwangi, Samuel

Student Work

A Hopping Two-Wheeled Segway Robot

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Small electric vehicles have revolutionized the means of transport in the recent years as a sustainable and convenient alternative to traditional modes of transportation in urban areas. Environmental problems such as global warming brought about by carbon emissions from vehicles has pushed for the need of more sustainable and easily accessible means of locomotion such as electric bicycles, electric scooters, and hoverboards, among many other small vehicles that are used in large industries and urban areas. Two-wheeled mobile robots (such as Segway) provide a high level of mobility and maneuverability and have great potential to be adopted in real-life settings. Compared with other small electric vehicles, Segways have a greater potential in being adapted as the future mode of short distance transportation due to their integration of robotics allowing safety features such as self-balancing and automated speed control. However, the current Segway platforms available in the market are unable to navigate unstructured environments. The goals of this project are two-fold: to develop an embedded control system for a commercial Segway to be driven autonomously, and to retrofit the Segway with a jumping mechanism to enable it to travel on uneven terrains. The final design offers a new class of two-wheeled mobile robots that employ jumping as a means of locomotion in non-continuous terrains.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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