A feedback linearization controller for trajectory tracking of the Furuta pendulum

A Furuta pendulum is a two degrees-of-freedom mechanism consisting of an arm rotating in the horizontal plane and a pendulum rotating in the vertical plane. The pendulum is attached to the arm tip. The complexity in the control of this system relies on that only the arm is actuated. The problem addressed in this paper consists in the design of a controller such that the difference between the desired joint position and the actual one is uniformly ultimately bounded. In particular, the desired arm position is a time varying signal and the desired pendulum position is zero. Roughly speaking, this has the physical meaning that the arm should be moving while the pendulum should be kept at the upward position. To satisfy that control goal, in this document a new controller based on the feedback linearization technique is introduced. The new scheme has been experimentally compared with respect to a known algorithm.