Construction of control algorithm in the problem of the planar motion of a friction-powered robot with a flywheel and an eccentric weight

•The design of an inertial robot with a unbalanced rotor and a flywheel is proposed.•A mathematical model of its planar motion is constructed.•A technique for the friction coefficient assessment is proposed.•An algorithm is constructed for controlling the motion of the robot body. A robot supported by two points on a supporting rough plane is considered. The robot is driven by displacement of internal masses and friction against the surface of the support. The robot body contains two motors that rotate one unbalanced rotor (eccentric weight) and one flywheel. A mathematical model of a plane-parallel robot motion is constructed. Friction is modeled using Coulomb's law. The angular accelerations of the rotor and the flywheel are used as control functions. A technique is proposed for evaluating the coefficient of friction between the robot body and the supporting plane. An algorithm for controlling the motion of the robot body in the desired direction using the obtained value of the coefficient of friction is proposed. An estimate of the implementation time of the algorithm is given. To assess the achievable body speed, a numerical calculation is implemented. The rectilinear translational motion of the body is carried out for the selected set of parameters in a wide range of friction coefficients. It is shown that an increase in friction increases the acceleration efficiency.