Robust Control for Joint Position Regulation of the Inertial Wheel Pendulum Affected by Constant Torque Disturbances

This paper presents the design of a robust controller for joint position regulation of the inertial wheel pendulum. The proposed controller for this underactuated mechanical system affected by an unknown constant disturbance was designed using an interesting energy shaping approach. The unknown disturbance is estimated via a nonlinear observer, and the stability analysis is based on Lyapunov’s theory. Numerical simulations on the inertia wheel pendulum model illustrate the performance of the proposed controller.