{"id":157,"date":"2025-09-19T11:37:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/?page_id=157"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:00:16","slug":"self-balancing-robot","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/?page_id=157","title":{"rendered":"Self-Balancing Robot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I built a self-balancing robot using two simple brushed DC motors, an Arduino and motor controller, and a MPU6050 IMU sensor unit for sensing the tilt angle of the robot body, all powered by 6 AA batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using a PID control algorithm, the robot is able to correctly actuate its wheels depending on the tilt angle detected, maintaining a level body angle. The P, I and D gains were tuned and tested iteratively until appropriate values were obtained that enabled balancing of the robot with minimal overshoot<\/em> of robot angle when adjusting, yet achieving target angle quickly<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First self-balancing robot version. Used a drone motor and ESC for the actuators. Found control of the robot to be too difficult and imprecise, especially since the motors feature a low-torque high-speed response<\/em> (opposite of the desirable actuator properties for a self-balancing robot).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Second robot version. Two high-torque low-speed<\/em> DC motors are used instead. The orange LiPo battery is used as a counterweight<\/em> only; the robot is powered by 6 AA batteries here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The code for this project can be found in this<\/mark><\/strong><\/a> GitHub repository.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I built a self-balancing robot using two simple brushed DC motors, an Arduino and motor controller, and a MPU6050 IMU sensor unit for sensing the tilt angle of the robot body, all powered by 6 AA batteries. Using a PID control algorithm, the robot is able to correctly actuate its wheels depending on the tilt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-157","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/157\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/louis.rotech.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}