MEM04: Rotary Inverted-Pendulum and Gantry

This lab addresses the control of a pendulum swinging from a rotating beam. Their are two control problems to consider: the gantry (crane) problem where we would like move the rotary section about while minimizing the swing of the pendulum and the inverted pendulum problem where we would like to balance the pendulum in the inverted position. First, the model structure for the system is derived from first principles and simple experiments are carried out to determine the model parameter values. Then, the laboratory proceeds with control design for each case separately.