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As a type of unmanned two-wheeled vehicles, unmanned bicycles have unique advantages, such as their agility and environmental friendliness. Therefore, they have great application prospects in various fields, such as avoiding traffic congestion, unmanned express delivery, and security patrols. These prospects have attracted an increasing attention from experts and scholars for research on the motion balance control of unmanned bicycles (Su & Chen, 2020; Owczarkowski et al., 2019). Additionally, numerous solutions have been proposed to address the balance problem of unmanned bicycles, which was broadly classified into two categories: with and without stabilizers.
When no stabilizer is added to an unmanned bicycle, the most typical method used (Cui et al., 2020; Huang et al., 2017; Yongli et al., 2020; Huang et al., 2017) is to control the vehicle’s turning angle. This is done by combining the rear wheel speed of the bicycle to generate centrifugal force to maintain its balance. Although this method does not require stabilizer addition, it can only maintain balance during motion and not during stillness.
The stabilizer problem of self-driving bicycles has various solutions. Some stabilizers use the principle of a gyroscope, which utilizes the energy produced by a rapidly rotating flywheel and then controls the angle of the flywheel to produce a force that helps maintain balance (Zheng et al., 2022; Park & Yi, 2020; Różewicz & Piłat, 2020). This method can maintain a bicycle’s balance when stationary and moving, and the flywheel response speed is fast, producing a large balance force. As suggested by CB et al. (2021), adding weight and adjusting the position on the bicycle can achieve balance by altering the bicycle’s overall weight distribution. Although this method can also maintain a vehicle’s balance when stationary and moving, adding weight increases its overall weight and size. The stabilizer used by Kim et al. (2015), Kien et al. (2023), Chiu and Wu (2020), Kim et al. (2013), and Kien et al. (2021) utilizes an inverted pendulum-based flywheel to generate a force that balances gravitational forces that act on the vehicle. This is achieved by modulating the flywheel’s rotation, providing fast response times and instantaneous force. Furthermore, the flywheel’s slower speed at the equilibrium state results in reduced power consumption.
Given the advantages and disadvantages of the various solutions mentioned, this study aims to establish a bicycle model that uses an inertial wheel utilizing the concept of an inverted pendulum.