Gyroscopic Balancer
The general idea behind this project is to create something that could be dropped into any robot or other project that needs balance compensation without using shifting weights and that could continue to compensate indefinably. When it's not vertical the gyroscope will rotate and create a moment to pull the project up into the vertical position.
This project is ongoing, as the simulation still has problems. When I use the torque of the motor as my controlling value the MATLAB simulation shows uncontrolled vibrations and the resulting movements don't make sense (above and beyond the standard anti-intuitiveness of gyroscopes). I get simular results when controlling angles directly.
Equations of motion To simulate our gyroscope we need to develop the equations of motion that govern its movement. These calculations show how I derived them.
Converting angles In order for this project to work in the real world we need a way to read our angles. These calculations show how I plan to go from the potentiometers reading to our Greek symbols used in the equation of motion.
Download MatLab files: Gyroscope.zip