A simple two-axis gimbal built using two servo motors, an mpu6050 gyro and accelerometer sensor, and an Arduino (Uno).
A short documentation for this can be found in the Arduino Project Hub. It was built for a workshop conducted in my university in the month of April, 2021.
Here is a helpful tutorial that I took reference of for building this project.
Gimbals are used to stabilise camera payloads that have been mounted on drones and other autonomous vehicles.
WORKING: The gimbal integrated an IMU (MPU6050) that responds to motion and provides inputs to a controller that activates separate motors to keep the payload steady on each axis.
Before starting on this project, make sure to go through this checklist:
| Component | Amount | Utility |
|---|---|---|
| Arduino Uno | x1 | Microcontroller |
| MPU6050 Accelerometer & Gyroscope | x1 | Tilt sensing |
| Micro servo motors | x2 | Actuators for stabilizing payload |
Make the connections between your components as follows:
- Connect VCC on the MPU6050 to the 5V pin on the Arduino.
- Connect GND on the MPU6050 to the GND on the Arduino.
- Connect SCL on the MPU6050 to A5 on the Arduino.
- Connect SDA on the MPU6050 to A4 on the Arduino.
The SDA & SCL pins establish the I2C Serial Communication between the Arduino and the MPU6050.
- Connect VCC (red jumper) on servo motor to 5V pin on Arduino
- Connect GND (black jumper) on servo to GND pin on Arduino
- Connect the signal jumper (yellow) on servo to pin 3 on Arduino
- Connect VCC (red jumper) on servo motor to 5V pin on Arduino
- Connect GND (black jumper) on servo to GND pin on Arduino
- Connect the signal jumper (yellow) on servo to pin 6 on Arduino
Pin 3 & 6 give PWM signals to the respective servo motors to move them to our desired orientation.
The code is given above and the project report for this workshop can also be found.
As I didn't have a 3D printer available for physically implimenting the gimbal, I used scrap thermocol ♻️ to join the two servos perpendicularly to make the two-axis gimbal.
The following research paper discusses 3 axis gimbals with 3 degrees of freedom, namely: roll, pitch & yaw. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326995081_Three_Axis_Gimbal_Design_and_Its_Application
The gimbal we are creating will work on 2 axis and hence will only have 2 degrees of freedom: roll & pitch.