Controller for swing-up and balance of single inverted pendulum using SDRE-based solution

In this paper, we propose a design of nonlinear controller for the underactuated systems by taking inverted pendulum as an example. The design of the controller is based on one of the recently proposed methods by Cloutier et al. for designing nonlinear controller, state dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) method. The effectiveness of this controller is verified by conducting a real time experiment for the swing-up and balance of single inverted pendulum on a linear track. One of the important aspects of using SDRE controller is that only one controller is required for both swing-up and balance as compared to other strategies where switching between controllers is performed. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the SDRE control over the LQR control for the same control parameters in the linear range. The procedure for solving Riccati equation in real time is also highlighted.