A Two-Wheeled Type Vehicle to Carry Luggage in Cooperation with Human

In recent years, the decline in the total population due to aging and a declining birth rate has become a problem in Japan. It is a concern that the declining population will result in a serious labor shortage. For example, the labor shortage is increasing in freight forwarding and service industries. Automation is being promoted by introducing robots and the like. The purpose of research is the realization of an assisting vehicle using an inverted two-wheeled luggage-transport vehicle. Inverted two-wheeled vehicles have the advantages of high mobility, such as small size, cost, and the ability to turn on the spot. These reasons are advantages of a new assist vehicle. Since the type of vehicle is an unstable system, stabilization is necessary. Therefore, cooperative operation with humans is realized by inverted control and force control that introduces variable gain. The proposed control method is derived theoretically and its effectiveness is confirmed by experiments.