Arduway: A Mini Segway Using The Arduino

[Joe L] sent in the Arduway on the tipline. It is a robot made of Arduino and Lego NXT components based on the Segway. A software library to control LEGO NXT motors and a few sensors he used is available on SourceForge. This robot does a good job of balancing itself while moving forwards and backwards.

There is a YouTube video of it in operation after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw9Jr-SPL0Y&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

11 thoughts on “Arduway: A Mini Segway Using The Arduino

  1. that’s especially impressive considering that the reaction time required to keep the thing vertical would scale linearly with its size. it’s pretty jerky, but a larger mass would damp the movements.

  2. The feedback looks pretty unstable, and I suspect all those camera angle changes are edits hiding the times the bot falls over.

    Hopefully they have success improving the software. Unfortunately one of the things DIY electronics doesn’t teach you is sound system control theory.

  3. Next year’s freshman EE students at my school (MSOE) will be building their own one of these, built with the same lego pieces even i think. The EE department head showed me the one he designed last week. Looks similar to this one.

    Except, it can be controlled by the accelerometer of a wii-mote :D

  4. Looks like it could do with a dose of actual (i.e. PDI) control.

    @kevin: Don’t know how you figure that. I would have though the reaction time required is inversely proportional to the moment of inertia about the wheels. That seems intuitive anyway; I haven’t actually done the maths.

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