Swinging-up and stabilization of a flywheel inverted pendulum by using a single controller

The control of non linear systems, when they are far from the equilibrium point, usually requires two controllers, one (nonlinear) for reaching the proximity of the equilibrium point and a second one (linear) for stabilization around this point. The flywheel inverted pendulum is an underactuated mechanical system with a nonlinear model but admitting a linear approximation around the unstable equilibrium point in the upper position. In this paper, a new controller based on the Linear Algebra Based control design methodology is presented. It allows to simultaneously accomplish both the approaching to the equilibrium point and the final stabilization. In this way, a single controller fulfills the goal and the controller switching is not required. Based on a laboratory experimental set-up, simulation results are presented and discussed.