Inverted pendulum type vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9358901-B2
Application number	US-201514639321-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 5, 2015
Priority date	Mar 7, 2014
Publication date	Jun 7, 2016
Grant date	Jun 7, 2016

Abstract

Provided is an inverted pendulum type vehicle capable of properly estimating whether or not a rider is thereon and controlling the travel of the vehicle by reflecting the result of the estimation. An inverted pendulum type vehicle 1 , in which a traveling unit is driven by electric motors 31 R, 31 L, includes an occupied/unoccupied estimating unit (a first estimating unit) 62 , which estimates whether or not a rider is on the vehicle 1 based on the observation values of the energizing currents of the electric motors 31 R, 31 L. A control unit 50 controls the operations of the electric motors 31 R, 31 L according to the estimation result of the estimating unit 62.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An inverted pendulum type vehicle comprising:
a base body comprising a lower frame and a support frame attached to and extending upwardly from the lower frame,
a traveling unit operatively attached to the lower frame and capable of traveling in a plurality of directions on a floor surface, the traveling unit comprising a centrally located wheel unit,
an electric motor that drives the traveling unit, wherein the traveling unit and the electric motor are installed on the lower frame of the base body, with the electric motor disposed above the wheel unit,
a current sensor for detecting an amount of electrical current supplied to the electric motor;
a rider mounting section installed to the base body tiltably with respect to a vertical direction, the rider mounting section disposed at an upper end of the support frame, and
a control unit that includes at least one processor and controls an operation of the electric motor, wherein the control unit comprises a first estimating unit that is configured to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle, based on an observation value of an energizing current of the electric motor based on a detection signal from the current sensor, and a current command value, which is a command value of the energizing current of the electric motor determined by the control unit;
and wherein the control unit is configured to control the operation of the electric motor according to an estimation result of the first estimating unit.

2. The inverted pendulum type vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein the first estimating unit is configured to calculate an acceleration/deceleration current component of the current command value, which acceleration/deceleration current component is for increasing/decreasing a driving force output by the electric motor, and to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle based on a reference current value obtained by subtracting the acceleration/deceleration current component from the observation value of the energizing current.

3. The inverted pendulum type vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein:
two of the electric motors are provided, and a power transmission system between the traveling unit and the two electric motors is configured such that a driving force, for moving the traveling unit in a first direction, is generated based on a total sum of driving forces output by the two electric motors, and a driving force for moving the traveling unit in a second direction is generated based on a difference between the driving forces output by the two electric motors, where the second direction is orthogonal to the first direction, and
the first estimating unit is configured to
carry out processing of converting a pair of observation values of the energizing currents of the two electric motors into a pair of reference current values including a first direction reference current value, which denotes a current component that generates the driving force for moving the traveling unit in the first direction, and a second direction reference current value, which denotes a current component that generates the driving force for moving the traveling unit in the second direction,
and to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle, based on the first direction reference current value and the second direction reference current value.

4. The inverted pendulum type vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein:
two of the electric motors are provided, and a power transmission system between the traveling unit and the two electric motors is configured such that a driving force, for moving the traveling unit in a first direction, is generated based on a total sum of driving forces output by the two electric motors, and a driving force for moving the traveling unit in a second direction is generated based on a difference between the driving forces output by the two electric motors, where the second direction is orthogonal to the first direction, and
the first estimating unit is configured to carry out:
processing of converting a pair of observation values of the energizing currents of the two electric motors into a pair of reference current values including a first direction reference current value, which denotes a current component that generates the driving force for moving the traveling unit in the first direction, and a second direction reference current value, which denotes a current component that generates the driving force for moving the traveling unit in the second direction,
processing of calculating acceleration/deceleration current components of current command values of the two electric motors, the acceleration/deceleration current components being provided for changing the driving forces output by the electric motors, and
processing of converting a pair of acceleration/deceleration current components of the two electric motors into a pair of a first direction acceleration/deceleration current value, which denotes a current component that generates a driving force for moving the traveling unit in the first direction, and a second direction acceleration/deceleration current value, which denotes a current component that generates a driving force for moving the traveling unit in the second direction,
and to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle based on a first direction reference current value obtained by subtracting the first direction acceleration/deceleration current value from the first direction current value and a second direction reference current value obtained by subtracting the second direction acceleration/deceleration current value from the second direction current value.

5. The inverted pendulum type vehicle according to claim 2 , wherein:
two of the electric motors are provided, and a power transmission system between the traveling unit and the two electric motors is configured such that such that a driving force, for moving the traveling unit in a first direction, is generated based on a total sum of output torques of the two electric motors, and a driving force for moving the traveling unit in a second direction is generated based on a difference between the driving forces output by the two electric motors, where the second direction is orthogonal to the first direction, and
the first estimating unit is configured to
carry out processing of converting a pair of observation values of the energizing currents of the two electric motors into a pair of reference current values including a first direction reference current value, which denotes a current component that generates the driving force for moving the traveling unit in the first direction, and a second direction reference current value, which denotes a current component that generates the driving force for moving the traveling unit in the second direction,
and to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle, based on the first direction reference current value and the second direction reference current value.

6. The inverted pendulum type vehicle according to claim 3 , wherein the first estimating unit is configured to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle based on a first a reference value obtained by smoothing the first direction reference current value, a first b reference value obtained by smoothing a value denoting a magnitude of the first direction reference current value, a second a reference value obtained by smoothing the second direction reference current value, and a second b reference value obtained by smoothing a value denoting the magnitude of the second direction reference current value.

7. The inverted pendulum type vehicle according to claim 4 , wherein the first estimating unit is configured to estimate whether or not a rider is on the vehicle based on a first a reference value

Assignees

• Honda Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Shirokura Shinya
• Ozaki Kazumasa

Classifications

• B60B19/12

  Roller-type wheels (B60B19/06 takes precedence) · CPC title

• B60L15/38

  with automatic control · CPC title

• B60B3/048

  the rim being rotatably mounted to the wheel disc · CPC title

• B62K1/00

  Unicycles · CPC title

• B62K3/007

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic