Simulation & road test results on balance and directional control of an autonomous bicycle

A control system with a cascaded structure based on PD control is developed to control balance and direction of an autonomous bicycle test platform equipped with roll angle, yaw rate sensors and a microcontroller. Besides stabilizing the platform at the upright position, non-zero equilibrium roll angle control for directional control is also considered. The controller design for the test platform complies with practical restriction imposed by the hardware configuration. A simplified bicycle model was used to conduct simulation tests, and then the same control scenario studied by simulation was implemented on the physical platform. Road test experiments have been performed with data collected, analyzed and compared with the simulation results. The test results validated the proposed strategy of controlling stabilization and direction of a basic bicycle using steering control.