# Designing an Inertia Actuator with a Fast Rotating Gyro inside an Egg-shaped Robot

## TL;DR

This paper introduces egg-shaped robots actuated by an internal fast-rotating gyro, using inertia principles for movement without external actuators, demonstrated through two prototype robots.

## Contribution

The paper presents a novel robot design utilizing an internal gyro and gimbal system for movement control, eliminating external actuators and enabling new actuation methods.

## Key findings

- Two prototypes successfully demonstrate gyro-based movement control.
- The inertia principle enables forward motion and turning without external motors.
- The design mimics spacecraft control gyroscopes for robotic locomotion.

## Abstract

In this paper, we describe features of two new robot prototypes that are actuated by an actively controlled gyro (flywheel, symmetric rotor) inside a hollow sphere that is located in the middle of the robots. No external actuators are used. The outside structure of the robots and the gyro are connected by a gimbal, which is similar in structure to a control moment gyroscope in spacecrafts. The joints of the gimbal can be actuated. In this way, the orientation of axis for the gyro in relation to the egg can be changed. Since the inertia of the fast rotating gyro is large in relation to the outside structure, a relative rotation of the axis against the outside structure results in a motion of the egg by inertia principle. In this way, we can use this principle for controlling the robot to move forward and turn around. The robots are shaped as spheroidal ellipsoids so they resemble eggs. So far, we have built and tested two robot prototypes.