Vehicles employing an inverted pendulum in posture control (hereafter simply termed “inverted pendulum vehicles”) have attracted attention and are currently being put into use.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a technique of driving two co-axially disposed drive wheels by using the movement in the center of gravity of a driver to monitor a posture of the drive wheels.
In addition, vehicles which move by controlling the posture of a single related-art circular drive wheel or a single spherical drive wheel and various types of inverted pendulum vehicles have been proposed.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2004-276727
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2004-129435
In this manner, a vehicle maintains a stationary state or a running state while performing posture control based on a body weight movement amount of a driver, an operation amount from a remote controller or operating device, or pre-set running command data, for example.
Posture control during running is performed by controlling output torque of the drive wheels so that the vehicle coincides with a target angle of inclination. For example, when an external force causes the vehicle to incline in a forward direction by more than the target angle of inclination, the vehicle posture (inclination angle) is controlled to coincide with a target inclination angle by increasing output torque from the drive wheels and increasing the rotation speed of the drive wheels.