Furuta's Pendulum: AConservativeNonlinear Model for Theory and Practise

Abstract

Furuta's pendulum has been an excellent benchmark for the automatic control community in the last years, providing, among others, a better understanding of model-based Nonlinear Control Techniques. Since most of these techniques are based on invariants and/or integrals of motion then, the dynamic model plays an important role. This paper describes, in detail, the successful dynamical model developed for the available laboratory pendulum. The success relies on a basic dynamical model derived from Classical Mechanics which has been augmented to compensate thenon-conservativetorques. Thus, thequasi-conservative“practical” model developed allows to design all the controllers as if the system was strictlyconservative. A survey of all the nonlinear controllers designed and experimentally tested on the available laboratory pendulum is also reported.