Simple inverted pendulum

Jan 27, 2006 2 Replies

Hello friends,



During my academics, I designed a simple inverted pendulum for set-point and trajectory tracking problems. At that time, I do not have sufficient information regarding drives, Data acquisition cards, etc.,


From some resources, we purchased NI-DAQ, MAXON motor and driver to

design a simple inverted pendulum. But the cost is too high.


These are the details of the set-up I used to design an experimental


  1. Maxon motor, and the Maxon driver, too costly.
  2. NI-PCI 6014 data acquisition card. This has 2 analog outputs, but the req. is only one analog channel o/p.

The purpose is to apply classical controls on a simple inverted pendulum carrying 100gm weight.


Can any one please give sufficient information, so that for the nexttime I can optimize things.


PS: Suppose if I purchase a motor of sufficient torque, I wish to design driver circuit. If you people did any driver circuit designs please post the articles.


Best regards srinivas

What are you trying to optimize _for_? What's your cost target? Have you looked at the solutions of others?

I have an old toy car sitting in my shop that I mean to make into an inverted pendulum base some day -- that's certainly optimizing for cost, but not performance or build time.

Performance is not the top-notch criteria. Cost is my primany criteria. I haven't looked other solutions.

Please mention the least possible cost and ofcourse if sufficient info is available, driver and dataacquistion card (dedicated one) can be easily built. Then motor is the only one I have to bother.

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