Model reference adaptive control for a two-wheeled robot.

Abstract

In this thesis, a model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) is developed for a two-wheeled mobile robot (TWMR). The inverted pendulum by nature is an unstable system and may be subjected to severe disturbances either in environment, (flat, tilted or bumped surfaces), or in load characteristics. The objective of the controller is to keep the TWMR in the upright position and prevent it from tipping over when subjected to either unexpected impulses or shifted weights along its interior body (IB). The non-linear mathematical model for the robot is formulated in an appropriate way to prove applicability of the proposed MRAC. Knowing that this a non-linear single-input multi-output (SIMO) platform, the proposed adaptive controller should handle the non-linearities with no attempt for linearization and inherently deal with SIMO systems. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.