Robots are designed to navigate independently, but when they encounter uneven terrain, they can lose their balance and fall. Unfortunately, if the robot tips over, it is difficult to right itself, as it has no arms or other limbs to help it stand upright. The self-balancing robot is made up of two wheels, a main body, and a tail component. The tail is controlled by an adaptive hierarchical controller with a sliding mode that anticipates uncertainty in dynamic and changing environments and adapts accordingly. To adapt, the tail rotates in different directions, parallel to the robot’s wheels, to help the robot maintain balance.

An example from nature

Animals with rigid tails use this extra limb to increase balance while moving around in their environment. These animals use their tail as a counterweight; when their body moves in one direction, the tail moves in the other to balance itself. Over the past decade, engineers have developed countless robots inspired by animal tails, such as snakes, fish, cheetahs, birds, insects, and countless other animals.

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Summarized by AskNature.org