Modelling and Control of a Self-Balancing Electric Motorcycle - Preliminary Results.

The development of electronic safety systems for two-wheeled vehicles has started with considerable delay with respect to their four-wheeled counterparts because motorcycle dynamics is more complex than four-wheeled vehicles one. In fact, in-plane and out-of-plane dynamics are strongly coupled in bikes. For these reasons the design of such a riderless control system has not been thoroughly investigated at low speed and without the use of steering torque in scientific literature. In this paper a riderless self-balancing two wheel drive electric motorcycle mathematical model - based on Lagrange's equations - with a sliding mode control strategy is put forward to cover this deficiency at low speed. Moreover, the study would find out whether at low speed driving front wheel torque could help vehicle stabilization when steering handlebar can not be actuated. For these reasons, in the proposed model the steering axis is locked over time and both front and rear wheel driving torques could be chosen as control inputs. The paper also presents a model validation with a multibody software.