Acceleration Feedback Controller Processor Design of a Kids Personal Transporter (kPT)

In robotics, one of the major tasks in prototyping a robot after validating it through simulations is the design of its controller and implementing on processor using a hardware descriptive language such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) board,very-large scale integration (VLSI) chip, and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). This paper presents the development of the embedded application-specific instruction set processor(ASIP) design for acceleration feedback control laws of a nonholonomic autonomous kids personal transporter (kPT) robot, which contains two front driven wheels and a rear freewheeling castor for balance with an omnidirectional obstacle sensor of limited detection range. The acceleration control laws are extracted from the total potentials, which is developed from the Lyapunov based Control Scheme (LbCS). The acceleration controllers were validated through simulations in Wolfram Mathematica software. The design could be implemented in hardware like VLSI chip, ASIC chip or an FPGA board for fast prototyping. Hence, this would provide a personal transporter for kids regardless of their physical and cognitive skills or abilities for safe navigation as the rider does not need to control the transporter.