Control of a self-balancing robot driven by DC motors via IDA-PBC.

The self-balancing robot is an example of underactuated mechanical systems; a class of mechanisms which have been very popular as benchmarks for control methods in the last years. The Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity Based Control (IDA-PBC) is a control methodology designed to solve the stabilization problem of underactuated systems. In this paper, we present an application of this control methodology to a self-balancing robot, by using an extension of the IDA-PBC method, which includes actuator dynamics. Based on the Lyapunov direct method we carry out stability analysis and, by invoking the theorem of Barbashin---Krasovskii, we arrive to asymptotic stability conditions. Experimental results are shown to illustrate the performance and viability of the proposed control.