Prototype design and analysis of controllers for one dimensional ball and beam system

Abstract

Ball and Beam structure is an under actuated nonlinear unstable electro-mechanical system and it is one of the robotic benchmark problem in control engineering. This paper addresses the control and real time modelling of ball and beam system. Different types of controllers are being used to balance a ball on a beam at a pre-defined location with precise amount of force and torque in minimum time for stable operation of the system. The accurate control of ball position on beam is a challenging task. The performance analysis of ball and beam system is carried out using PID, state space, lag-lead, robust LQR, observer based LQG controllers, and performance characteristics of the system is presented. Lyapunov direct method is used describe the unstable behaviour of ball and beam system.