Remotely Operated Rotary Inverted Pendulum System for Online Control Engineering Education

Balance control systems are known to be one of the most crucial and challenging systems in the field of controls engineering. Rotary Inverted Pendulum (RIP) system is an experimental platform which can perform a wide range of balance control experiments. In an era where physical movements are restricted and with social distancing and remote learning, conducting laboratory experiments have become much more challenging. Hence, the goal of this study is to test the feasibility in performing laboratory experiments on a RIP system in a simulation environment for distance learning purposes. In this study, the developed RIP system was used to perform experiments on PID and LQR control. All the simulations were performed using SolidWorks®, Simscsape Multibody link and MATLAB® Simulink® software. When the simulations were tested for distance learning, identical results were observed proving the feasibility of linear & nonlinear simulations for remote-learning. Hence, this simulation platform is capable of fulfilling the task of providing hands on experience in control engineering laboratory experiments for remote/distance learning purposes.