An Open Access I/O Model of a Real-World Inverted Triple Pendulum for Education, Development, and Implementation of Control Algorithms and for Public Testing of Feedback Controllers

Organiser:

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jan Heiland (Max Planck Institute Magdeburg)

Sponsoring IFAC Body: 

TC 6.1 Chemical Process Control

Overview: 

In our institute, we have a running controlled triple pendulum that we use to show-case the
scope and potential of control theory to the interested public at visits of school classes or at
our open door days.
https://www.mpi-magdeburg.mpg.de/3952045/showcase
In this project, we will make a well-documented I/O model (Simulink) of our test setup
available to the broad public interested in control technology.
This allows everyone to develop and test their own approaches in the model. Thanks to the
clearly defined I / O interface, it will be even possible to try out the controllers in our
experiments. For that we will organize in a number of public (online) events.
The added value for the community is as follows:
- A well-documented Simulink model with a relevant, mathematically still tangible and
challenging application
- This model is suitable for teaching control theory and for implementing and testing classical
and recently developed approaches in a simulation.
- On defined occasions, we will ask for sending in the implementations and let them run in
our experimental setup, thus providing public and curated access to a functioning non-trivial
test setup (there are only a few triple pendulums in action world-wide)
- On these occasions, we will live-broadcast the experiments, so that the scientifically
interesting comparison of different algorithms is carried out in a way that is attractive for an
even broader public.