Dynamic modeling of an unmanned motorcycle and combined balance control with both steering and double CMGs

Abstract The control moment gyroscope (CMG) can provide large roll restoring moment for unmanned motorcycles or bicycles to improve their stability and mobility. However, in most previous CMG-based studies, the balance controllers are on the basis of the inverted pendulum model of the motorcycle or bicycle, i.e., the steering mechanism is locked. As the steering mechanism is a necessary component for the motorcycle and it can also provide a restoring moment for the vehicle, the combined control for balance between CMG and steering is necessary and meaningful. Noting this, this paper studies the dynamic modeling of a motorcycle and proposes a combined balance control method with both steering and double CMGs. A multibody model is presented for dynamic simulation based on Lagrange equations of the first kind. A simplified model is proposed for controller design, based on which a combined balance controller with both steering and double CMGs is developed. The numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the rationality of the simplified model and the effectiveness of the combined balance controller. The simulation results show that the proposed combined controller performs better than the steering controller and the inverted-pendulum-based controller.