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MABEL uses legs to accelerate and brake!

A project log for MABEL - A Boston Dynamics inspired balancing robot

MABEL (Multi Axis Balancer Electronically Levelled) is a unique arduino/Raspberry Pi self balancing robot with movable legs.

raspiboticsRaspibotics 01/10/2021 at 09:480 Comments

So we're back in lockdown in the UK again which means I've got some more time to work on MABEL. This time I've put the legs to use and you can see in this preliminary test that by  moving the legs using the Inverse Kinematics script (written in the previous post) we can move the legs. This changes to the centre of mass of the robot and allows us to kick the robot forwards or backwards and help accelerate and decelerate the robot much more effectively. 

At present moving the robot legs up and down is proving to be quite difficult as it tends to make the robot unstable. My solution is to write a script to smooth out the servo motion which should make the robot more stable moving in that direction.

All driving in the video is done by changing the Centre of Mass (CoM) by moving the legs. This allows the robot to accelerate more effectively than by changing motor speed alone. It still needs work but it's getting there:

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