Swing Up Control Strategies for a Reaction Wheel Pendulum

Control of a reaction wheel pendulum, a prototype of an under-actuated system, is easily done using switching control strategies, which combines swing-up control and balancing control schemes. In this article, two novel swing-up control strategies for a reaction wheel pendulum have been proposed. The first swing-up control strategy treats the oscillations of the pendulum as perturbations from the bottom equilibrium point. The second swing-up control is based on interconnection and damping assignment-passivity based control (IDA-PBC). IDA-PBC preserves Euler Lagrangian structure of the system and gives more physical insight about any mechanical system. Any balancing controller can be coupled with the proposed swing-up control strategies to stabilise the pendulum at the top unstable equilibrium position. The control task of balancing the pendulum in top upright position is completed by switching from swing-up scheme to the balancing scheme at the point where the pendulum is very near to the top equilibrium point. Proposed swing-up control strategies have been implemented in real time in switching mode. The two proposed swing-up control schemes provide fast responses as compared to existing energy based schemes.