Design and implementation of a novel inertia flywheel pendulum mechatronic kit

Abstract

The inertia flywheel pendulum exhibits several characteristics, such as underactuation and nonlinearity, that make it attractive for research and advanced control education. The main goal of this paper is to develop a novel mechatronic kit with a control methodology for an inertia flywheel pendulum. The mechatronic kit has a motor and flywheel mounted at the top of the body. It is a physical pendulum with a symmetric wheel attached to the end, which is free to spin around an axis parallel to the axis of rotation of the pendulum. The flywheel is actuated by a direct current motor and the coupling torque generated by angular acceleration of a wheel disk is used to dynamically control the system. The hybrid control strategy for stabilization of the inertia flywheel pendulum is presented and examined. The control aim is achieved by the solution of the following two particular control problems: swinging the pendulum up to a certain neighborhood of the inverted position and balancing it in this position. The energy control was designed for swing-up of the inverted pendulum. The genetic algorithm proportional-integral-derivative controller was implemented for balancing the inverted pendulum. The proposed hybrid control methodology has successfully performed stabilization control, even when unexpected loading conditions occur. Consequently, the novel flywheel pendulum system is ideally suited for advanced control courses for educating university students.