Development of a Self-Balancing robot utilizing FPGA

The popularity of self-balancing vehicles in modern times is rising as the price of consumer electronics is on a steady decline. Consumers have more access to smarter electronics and mechatronics devices. Self-Balancing vehicles have become an exciting new method of human transport that have the potential to redefine the way we traverse our cities. This document will outline the research, design, construction, implementation and analysis that has been undertaken to develop from the ground up, a scaled down version of a self-balancing vehicle. The two wheeled self-balancing robot discussed in this project will take advantage of National Instruments myRIO-1900 embedded hardware device and will utilize the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) embedded hardware along with PID feedback control loops to achieve stabilization in this inherently unstable system. The final section of this document details the techniques used to achieve this objective and suggests future works for the project that would enable future students to take advantage of this new student engineering asset

Curr Epidemiol Rep

Purpose of review:Road traffic injuries are one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and globally. We introduce the Safe Systems approach as a promising paradigm for road safety practice and describe how systems thinking tools can help bridge the gap between the current status quo and a Safe Systems approach.Recent findings:Systems thinking tools can help us align with a Safe Systems approach by identifying latent risks in the transportation system, examining factors that coalesce to produce high travel speeds and kinetic energy transfer, and supporting safety prioritization through goal alignment.Summary:The Safe Systems approach represents a significant change in the way we have historically designed transportation systems; it puts safety at the forefront and calls for designing a system that accounts for human fallibility. Operationalizing holistic Safe Systems concepts may be difficult, but systems thinking tools can help. Systems thinking tools provide a common language for individuals from diverse disciplines and sectors to express their unique understanding of the interconnected factors shaping road safety problems and support discussions about potential solutions that align with a Safe Systems approach.R49 CE002479/CE/NCIPC CDC HHS/United States2021-01-15T00:00:00Z34136335PMC8205420988

Adaptive Robust Self-Balancing and Steering of a Two-Wheeled Human Transportation Vehicle

This paper presents adaptive robust regulation methods for self-balancing and yaw motion of a two-wheeled human transportation vehicle (HTV) with varying payload and system uncertainties. The proposed regulators are aimed at providing consistent driving performance for the HTV with system uncertainties and parameter variations caused by different drivers. By decomposing the overall system into the yaw motion subsystems and the wheeled inverted pendulum, two proposed adaptive robust regulators are synthesized to achieve self-balancing and yaw motion control. Numerical simulations and experimental results on different terrains show that the proposed adaptive robust controllers are capable of achieving satisfactory control actions to steer the vehicle

Human Transporter(E-Porter)

The function of a human transporter is basically used for transferring a single person from one place to another in a short period of time. It is a device that acts as an alternative to traditional transportations options like cars and motorcycles that are commonly used today. With the development of a human transporter, it can overcome the problem of commuting great distances between places faced by the students inside the university. To use the human transporter as an alternative means of transportation inside the university, the vehicle must be created with the advantages of being lightweight, energy efficient, durable, user-friendly, economical and safe. The project scopes that are involved to achieve these objectives includes researches on current technologies inside existing human transporters, conducting survey form to Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) students and doing an extensive research on the source of energy that drives the human transporter. The methods that are being used inside the project are planning the project work for the whole time frame allocated, do the literature review and research at the beginning stage, collect data for available source of clean energy and mechanical mechanism that can enhance the performance of the human transporter, produce technical drawing during the design stage and finally, construct the prototype. The research and design stage is completed during the first semester while the fabricating stage for the prototype is done during the second semester. Through the development of this human transporter, the project delivers a good optional solution for UTP students to overcome the commuting problems they face in the university. A part from that, by promoting the use of clean source energy, this device will be much an environmental friendly product as it produces no pollutant emissions compared to other fuel combustion vehicles nowadays

Linking integrity with road pricing cause-and-effect model: A system dynamics simulation approach

With Malaysia's rapid urbanisation and continuous improvement of living standards, vehicle ownership and trip volume continue to grow. Increases in motor traffic in large cities and their environs result in a number of social, environmental, and economic issues, which are frequently attributable to the widespread use of automobiles as the primary mode of urban transportation. This exacerbates traffic congestion on the country's highways, particularly in urban areas such as Kuala Lumpur. This traffic congestion poses an ongoing threat to the sustainability of transport development. Thus, by using the system dynamics, this study establishes a cause-and-effect relationship regarding the implementation of road pricing as a tool for reducing congestion and a stepping stone for enhancing sustainability. Road pricing is a direct charge assessed to drivers who use the road network with the goal of reducing the number of private vehicles on the road during peak hours. The developed Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) composed of five subsystems: road congestion, road attractiveness, new road construction, public transportation, and road pricing. The road congestion, new road construction, and road pricing all encounter mutual reinforcement as a result of a variety of negative polarities. As a result, authorities should place a greater emphasis on these loopholes, as they will inevitably result in unexpected changes. Additionally, by incorporating holistic perspectives from previous works and experts in the field, CLD can aid in identifying the primary factors underlying the problem being studied. In future work, the developed CLD should be extended to the next stage of the SD model, dubbed stock-flow-diagram (SFD)

Promoting Bicycle Commuter Safety, Research Report 11-08

We present an overview of the risks associated with cycling to emphasize the need for safety. We focus on the application of frameworks from social psychology to education, one of the 5 Es—engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation. We use the structure of the 5 Es to organize information with particular attention to engineering and education in the literature review. Engineering is essential because the infrastructure is vital to protecting cyclists. Education is emphasized since the central focus of the report is safety

Design of an Active-Assistance Balancing Mechanism for a Bicycle

The goal of this project is to design and build a prototype self balancing bicycle for use as a teaching tool for someone learning to ride a bicycle and as means for a disabled person to ride a bicycle who would otherwise not be able to do so. The project consists of a research phase in which similar systems have been investigated to help determine a sensible design approach and to establish appropriate design specifications; a design phase in which a prototype was designed to meet the aforementioned specifications; and a construction phase, in which the prototype was built and tested