Daniel C. Harris  

Acrobot is a self-balancing robot that uses an onboard inertial mass unit (IMU) as well as a microcontroller (ATmega32U4) to keep itself upright. The robot was also designed to respond to external impulses so that it may stay upright when external impulses were applied, however, there were instances where it would become unstable - this was a direct result of the parameters used in the PID controller. 

 

The main hindrance for this project was having to connect the microcontroller via USB every time the PID parameters had to be updated. If I were to make this device again, I would incorporate wireless data transmission whereby I could update the PID parameters instantaneously instead of using a manual connection.