Regular self-oscillating and chaotic behaviour of a PID controlled gimbal suspension gyro

The dynamics of a gyro in gimbal with a PID controller to obtain steady state, self-oscillating and chaotic motion is considered in this paper. The mathematical model of the whole system is deduced from the gyroscope nutation theory and from a feedback control system formed by a PID controller with constrained integral action. The paper shows that the gyro and the associated PID feedback control system have multiple equilibrium points, and from the analysis of a Poincaré–Andronov–Hopf bifurcation at the equilibrium points, it is possible to deduce the conditions, which give regular and self-oscillating behaviour. The calculation of the first Lyapunov value is used to predict the motion of the gyro in order to obtain a desired equilibrium point or self-oscillating behaviour. The mechanism of the stability loss of the gyro under small vibrations of the gyro platform and the appearance of chaotic motion is also presented. Numerical simulations are performed to verify the analytical results.