Date of Award

2012

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE)

Department

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering

First Advisor

Richard J. Vaccaro

Abstract

Robots have been used in many applications in the past three decades. One type of robot is a two-wheeled robot that requires control for both balancing and maneuvering. This thesis shows the design of a controller that can both balance and provide trajectory control for a two-wheeled robot. The controller is a digital tracking system that utilizes pole placement for system stability. The thesis provides a detailed description for modeling the plant, design of the controller, simulating the final system and implementation into hardware. Three pole placement methods are analyzed as well as tracking designs that use steady-state or ramp tracking. Each of these controllers have simulation results and the controller that has the best simulation performance is implemented into the hardware. The final controller is implemented into Lego® Mindstorm® hardware using Matlab® and Simulink®. The results of the simulations are compared to the results found in hardware.

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