Hope College Department of Physics and Engineering Research Experiences for Undergraduates Summer 2005 Project Summary

The objective of this project was to develop an interface to control a pendulum. The pendulum uses encoders that sense the position of the pendulum arm and disk, which sends information to a Data Acquisition (DAQ) board. The program was created based on LabVIEW and the DAQ board (PCI-6602). LabVIEW reads information from the DAQ board, sends a signal back to the board, and transmits a pulse width modulation (PWM) output to a speed controller to control the voltage applied on a DC motor. The motor creates a torque on an inertial disk to swing the pendulum arm. The first proposed control, dependent on the direction of the arm velocity, was designed to apply maximum torque to the arm. The second proposed control depends on the direction of the arm velocity, the maximum angle in oscillation and the arm's position. Using this control with new techniques, a program was written to successfully invert the pendulum with minimal velocity in the inertial disk.

Publications and Presentations:
J.P. Mulder, K.J. Buter, M.A. Abrahantes*, "CONTROL OF AN UNDERACTUATED PENDULUM", The Joint Meeting of the SIXTEENTH ANNUAL Argonne Symposium for Undergraduates in SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS & THE CENTRAL STATES UNIVERSITIES, INCORPORATED (csui), November 4-5, 2005
http://www.dep.anl.gov/p_undergrad/ugsymp/2005Abstracts(PDF)/Mulder,%20Jeffrey.pdf

"MODELING, IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF AN UNDER ACTUATED INITIAL WHEEL PENDULUM", M. Abrahantes, J. Mulder, K. Buter. IEEE. S.S. on System Theory. Macon , Georgia. Proceedings page 1.