Inverted Pendulum

The purpose of this project was to help students familiarize themselves with how to simulate an inverted pendulum mechanism leveraging python.

An inverted pendulum mechanism is often used in control systems classes to introduce students to naturally unstable systems and show how one can stabilize them.

In this simulation, the red cart is moved left and right so that the mass on the tip of the rigid pendulum arm is upright. As a project requirement, no actuator is allowed on the connection hinge of the cart and pendulum, hence the movement of the cart is the only way to stabilize the mechanism.

both PID and Pole placement methods was used to stabilize the system. This was done by feeding the cart position data and the pendulum angle to the PID/Pole placement function which would then output a correcting cart force.