Simulation of standing upright control of an inverted pendulum using inertia rotor and the swing type inverted pendulum for engineering education

These days, higher educational institutions in Japan are facing various problems. For example, as a result of the decreasing number of science or technology students, there will be fewer researchers or engineers of the next generation in those fields, which may undermine the foundation of manufacturing in Japan. That is typical consideration. There are various measures, such as visiting lectures to tackle this problem, but a control engineering area is the same situation in the field of engineering. We need new experimental teaching materials which are easy to understand and can be used in demonstration experiments for students and in open classes for elementary and junior high school students. Especially, inverted pendulums are useful teaching materials and are often used in classes of colleges and NITs. There is a type of inverted pendulum called inertia rotor type. It is a type of inverted pendulum which can be stood upright by the reaction force generated through adding torque to the power point. In this research, we aim to manufacture an inverted pendulum with a purpose of making students to learn control engineering using inertia rotor type inverted pendulum. First, as a procedure of stabilization control design, to model the inertia rotor type inverted pendulum, we measured physical parameters in each part of the inverted pendulum and derived a motion equation and a state equation. Then we conducted PID control and optimal regulator control as control methods to make the pendulum stand upright in a vertical state. In each case, we conduct a control experiment. We also design and manufacture a swing type inverted pendulum with this inertia rotor, and introduce the process from the swing control to the standing position control.