Controlling the Furuta pendulum: Proof of concept through virtual prototyping

Abstract

Furuta pendulum is a mechanism with two rotating arms. One arm rotates in the horizontal plane, while the other rotates freely in the vertical plane. The arm rotating in the vertical plane acts as an inverted pendulum. Controlling the Furuta pendulum is challenging because the underlying mechanism is highly nonlinear, unstable, and underactuated. How to control the Furuta pendulum effectively motivates this study. The main contribution of this paper is to revisit a linear control strategy that seems to stabilize the Furuta pendulum. This paper revisits the Euler-Lagrange formulation and shows how to use this formulation to represent the Furuta pendulum's nonlinear dynamics. Data from simulating the Furuta pendulum through equations and virtual prototyping suggest the effectiveness of the linear control.