SISY 2010 2010 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Intelligent Systems and Informatics September 10-11, 2010, Subotica,

a, Serbia

Design and implementation of Sugeno controller for

Inverted Pendulum on a Cart system
Ali Poorhossein

Ali Vahidian-Kamyad

Control and automation laboratory

Engineering school
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Mashhad, Iran
Poorhossein@ieee.org

Engineering and mathematical school

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Mashhad, Iran
kamyad@math.um.ac.ir

AbstractNowadays simple and executable controllers that

can control many complex processes are more popular,
remarkable and justifiable. Studying and designing such
controllers for inverted pendulum system is a prominent way to
prove the controllers performance. Inverted pendulum system is
a classic system in most control laboratories. The system
structure, totally, consists of a cart and a pendulum hinged to the
moving cart via a pivot. The basic problem in an inverted
pendulum system is stabilizing pendulum angle. The system
equations are non-linear and non-minimum phase and thereby,
the relation between the force to the cart and the angle of
pendulum is not easily calculable. Also, the stabilization of cart
position should be checked. In many cases the system with
controller is not executable. In this paper, a simple
implementable controller will be proposed for inverted pendulum
on a cart system to stabilize both pendulum angle and cart
position. Firstly, the force to the cart is obtained by using
feedback linearization method and system dynamic. Then, it will
be converted to a fuzzy controller based on Taylor series. In
comparison with other controllers, it is more fluent and
executable. Simulation and experimental results evaluate the
controller performance.

classical control theories [2-8] to intelligent control algorithms

[1][9-15] and hybrid control methods [8][15][16]. The
pendulum is a reasonably simple system, but the physical
models all have their peculiarities with regard to friction, dead
band and other nonlinearities. These characteristics are
common cause for obstacles to the control system, which are
not always simple to overcome. So, just some of these
controllers can be implemented [1][3][8][11-13].

KeywordsFeedback linearization method, Fuzzy Sugeno

controller, Inverted Pendulum on a Cart system

I.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays simple and executable controllers that can control

many complex processes are more popular, remarkable and
justifiable. Studying and designing such controllers for
inverted pendulum system is a prominent way to prove the
controllers performance. The reason behind such extensive
studies of the pendulum relies behind the fact that many
important engineering systems can be approximately modeled
as pendulum. For example, in thrust vectored rocket control,
the pitch dynamics of a rocket can be approximated by a
simple pendulum. In robot systems, the relation is pertinent
with inverted pendulum systems. In biomechanics, the
pendulum is used to model bipedal dynamic walking. The
pendulums are also used in the study of wheeled motion and
balancing mechanisms [1].
Many challenging control algorithms have been tested with the
inverted pendulum system. These controllers are from

978-1-4244-7395-3/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Figure 1. Collage showing the physical inverted pendulum on cart system

The inverted pendulum to be discussed in this paper is an

inverted pendulum on cart. It consists of a cart and a pendulum
hinged to the moving cart via a pivot and only the cart is
actuated (Fig. 1.). This system is nonlinear, unstable, non
minimum phase and under actuated. Many parasitic effects
exist such as friction, elastic modes of rod and shaft, backlash
effects of gears and belts, together with input saturation.
In this paper, a simple implementable controller is proposed
for inverted pendulum on a cart system. The task is to control
both pendulum angle and cart position by using Fuzzy Sugeno
controller (FSC). The FSC converts non-linear system to a set
of nonlinear subsystems that they have much simpler
structures. So the mathematical analysis is more feasible and
the stability analysis has been presented in the literature. To

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A. Poorhossein and A. Vahidian-Kamyad Design and Implementation of Sugeno Controller for Inverted Pendulum on a Cart System

achieve real-time control an AVR-board (Automatic Voltage

Regulator-board) and a PC (personal computer) are used to
stabilize Inverted Pendulum system. Experimental studies
evaluate the FSC performance.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
presents a solution to stabilize inverted pendulum system with
the associated nonlinear force to the cart and Sugeno
controller. Section III presents the results in two part of
simulation and implementation of controller for inverted
pendulum system and analysis. Section IV concludes and
highlights the future works.
II.

The equations of motion are

( I + ml ) + mgl sin ( ) + mlxcos ( ) = 0

2

The nonlinear state equation can be derived by Lagrange's

equations is
.

x1 = x2

( M + m ) ( I + ml 2 )

x2 = ml cos ( x1 )

ml ( cos ( x1 ) )

bx4 + mlx22 sin ( x1 )

+ g ( M + m ) tan ( x1 ) + F

SOLUTION

A. Mathematical model of the inverted pendulum on cart

The inverted pendulum on cart system shown in Fig. 2 is
composed of a cart and a pendulum. The pendulum is hinged to
the cart via a pivot and only the cart is actuated.

(1)

( M + m ) x + bx + ml cos ( ) ml2 sin ( ) = F

(2)

x3 = x4
1

( ml cos ( x ) )2
1

x4 = ( M + m )

( I + ml 2 )

bx4 + mlx22 sin ( x1 )

2 2
m l g cos ( x1 ) sin ( x1 )

+ F
+
2
I
ml
+
(
)

Where x1 = , x2 = , x3 = x, x4 = x are selected as state

Stabilizing Controller variables and the input is the applied
force F.
B. Applied force to cart
To stabilize x1 and x2 in equation 1, feedback linearization
method has been used. The force u is obtained as follows:
u = -(( M + m) g tan( x1 ) + mlx2 2 sin( x1 ))
(3)
- (ml cos( x1 )) - (( M + m)l / cos( x1 ))

Figure 2. The inverted pendulum on cart system

Table 1 shows the system parameters and experimental values.

Table 1. System parameters and experimental

parameter

x
M
m
l

b
F
I

Definition
pendulum angle
(rad)
cart position (m)
mass of the cart
(kg)
mass of the
pendulum (kg)
distance from the
turning center to
center of mass of
the pendulum (m)
cart's friction
coefficient (kg/s)
force applied to the
cart (N)
Inertia of pendulum

Experimental
values

,
6 6
1m

0.5 kg.
0.3 kg
0.6 m

(5 x1 + x2 )
Base on equations 2 and 3, two first parts of equations 2
convert to
.

x1 = x 2
.

x 2 = 5 x1 x2

(4)

The equation 4 is linear and stable. So, x1 and x2 will

converge to zero.
Then, to stabilize all states in equation 1, based on the resister
roles of friction and distance of cart from zero, coefficients of
x3 and x4 are added to equation 3. Total force to the cart is
obtained as follows [14]:
u = 2bx4 ( M + m ) g tan ( x1 ) mlx22 sin ( x1 )

( M + m ) ( I + ml 2 )
( 5 x1 + x2 ) 0.5 x3
ml cos ( x1 )
ml cos ( x1 )

0.1N / m / sec
2N

0.006kg m2

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(5)

SISY 2010 2010 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Intelligent Systems and Informatics September 10-11, 2010, Subotica, Serbia

C. Sugeno controller
Equation 5 is nonlinear. Implementation of such forces is
complex and expensive. Also, the system with minimum
uncertainty will be unstable. The purpose is to convert
equation 5 to a feasible and more executive force. In this part,
equation 3 will be converted to a Fuzzy Sugeno controller
(FSC) to implement obtained force to the inverted pendulum
system. Based on Sugeno structure, membership functions are
defined as Zero, Positive Small, Positive Big, Negative Small
and Negative Big for all four states (figures 3 to 6).

ulinearized ( x1 , x2 , x3 , x4 ) =

u
u
x1 x10 +
x2 x20
x1
x2

u
u
x3 x30 +
x4 x40 + u x10 , x20 , x30 , x40
+
x3
x4

) (

(6)

Because the linearized spaces are small, set of subsystems are

equal to basic nonlinear system (Eq. 1). Based on the equation
no.1, x3 and x4 are linear. Therefore, the fuzzy rule bases
decrease from 625 to 25 rule bases. Some rule bases never
happen or they conflict with each other. So, 13 rule bases are
considered as follows:
1
If
theta
is
Zero,  is
Zero
Then

u1 = 2.61x1 + 0.85 x2
2

If

theta

is

Zero,

is

Zero

Then

u2 = 2.61x1 + 0.85 x2 0.2 x4 + 0.05

13 If theta is PB,  is Zero Then

u13 = 2.1876 x1 + 0.9558 x2 4.32 x3 + 0.4785 x4

Figure 3. Membership function of

+ 3.3422

Because of confliction between rule bases, defuzzification

method is used to obtain output u. Firstly value factors for
each sentence of each predicate are defined as follows.
If theta
is PB
Dtheta
is PB
 

, 
 

, 
xis 
PB
Dx
is PB

and 
 

Figure 4. Membership function of 

THEN

...

Value of each predicate is obtained by i i i i .

Numeric values of i , i , i , i are equal to values of each
inputs in fuzzy sets. For example in Fig. 7 value of 1 is 0.3
and value of 2 is 0.8 and the others are zero.

Figure 5. Membership function of x

Figure 7. Numeric value of

i , i , i , i

Finally, the applied force to the cart is obtained as follows:

Figure 6. Membership function of x

Based on membership functions 3 to 6, 5 5 5 5 = 625 rule

bases can be considered. For example If theta is Zero,  is
Zero, x is Zero, x is PS Then . Because majority of rule
bases are unacquired, not happened or conflict with each other,
169 rule bases will be enough.
Second terms of fuzzy rule bases are obtained by linearizing
equation no. 1 around central point of each membership
functions based on Taylor series by

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13

U=

u
i =1
13

i i i i

i =1

i i i

(7)

A. Poorhossein and A. Vahidian-Kamyad Design and Implementation of Sugeno Controller for Inverted Pendulum on a Cart System

D. Stabilization of FSC
With the suggested FSC in II.c and the value of table 1,
maximum of 25 subsystems were suggested. To prove the
stabilization of FSC, firstly, each subsystem is linearized about
its central point. Then matrixes A for each 25 linear
subsystems have been calculated. The eigenvalues of matrixes
A, with the values in table 1, are all negative for each 25 linear
subsystems. Therefore, the FSC can stabilize the inverted
pendulum system in the area of balancing position.
The eigenvalues of matrixes A will remain negative with
uncertainty about 2 degrees in and 5 cm in x [14].
III.

RESULT

A. Simulation results
Fig. 8 and 9 describe simulation results for system with
Sugeno controller for initial value of
.
.
rad .
m
x 2 = 0.1
, x 3 = 0.1 ( m ) , x 4 = 0.1

sec
sec

Figure 8.

x1 = 0.5 ( rad ) ,

for 30 seconds.

and  of system with controller

As indicated in Fig. 8 and 9 the system with controller is

stable. Also, the applied force to the cart is bounded (Fig. 10.).
B. Experimental results
The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. The system
consists of an inverted pendulum on a cart and an AVR microcontroller. It can be used a personal computer (PC) with AVR
micro-controller to increase sampling time. Also graphical
user interface (GUI) toolbox of MATLAB has been used to
implement controller.
AVR (or GUI) controller inputs are pendulum angle and cart
position. AVR (GUI) controller Output is pulse width
modulation (PWM) signals for motor derivers.
The inverted pendulum can fall in two directions, since the
contact between the pendulum and the cart is almost
frictionless. The cart is actuated by direct current (dc) motor
through timing belts (Fig. 1.). Loose tension of timing belts
yields nonlinearities such as backlash. The experimental
values are shown in Table 1.
The dc motors, driven by a driver commanded from the AVR
micro controller and parallel port of PC, actuate the axes of the
table. The pendulum angle is measured by variable resistor
that is attached to pendulum. Movement of the cart in each
axis is also sensed by a variable resistor. Sampling period of
process is about 0.01s.
First, balancing the inverted pendulum at a commanded
position is tested. The cart is required to stay at the origin 0 m
and the pendulum stay at 0 degree. While the pendulum
system is in (0,0) the PWM is zero and the DC motor is off.
The results of balancing the pendulum at a desired position
and degree are shown in Figs. 11-14. The results for initial
states as x. 1 = 0.1( rad ) , x. 2 = 0 rad , x. 3 = 0 ( m ) , x. 4 = 0 m are

sec

( rad )

Figure 9.

x and x of system with controller

sec

Figure 11.

of system with controller

Figure 12.

x of system with controller

x ( cm )

Figure 10. Applied force to the cart

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Sampling time
(20 seconds)

Sampling time
20(seconds)

SISY 2010 2010 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Intelligent Systems and Informatics September 10-11, 2010, Subotica, Serbia

u( N )

Figure 13. Applied force to the cart

Sampling time
(20 seconds)

C. Analysis
Simulation shows that our controller can greatly enhance the
stability of the inverted pendulum system. In addition, our
experimental results justify the simulation results.

In theory, can vary between ( 90D ,90D ) , but, experimentally,

based on some limitations such as dc motor saturation and
sensors uncertainty, it reduced to ( 30D ,30D ) . It can be increased
by using a more powerful dc motor and encoder instead of
variable resistor.

Figure 14. Trajectory tracking pictures

this paper offers an efficient solution to stabilize inverted

pendulum dealing with state spaces equations. The discussed
sugeno controller in this paper stabilized both pendulum angle
and cart position. First, the force to the cart was suggested by
feedback linearization method and system dynamic. Then, it
converted to a fuzzy controller based on Taylor series.
Specifically, simplicity and potency of FSCs enable
controllers to be implemented in real environments.
Although the system we have studied so far is standard
benchmark task, the discussed controller has shown
encouraging results. The work reported here only marks the
beginning of our study into the complex and nonlinear systems
domain.
While it can be implemented to the other real systems by using
just an AVR micro-controller, it will remain a challenge to
maintain the robustness and adaptability of the proposed FSC
in this paper in more complex real-world problems. Our future
work in control, welding and CNC laboratories of Ferdowsi
University of Mashhad will include the development such
controllers that can cope with a variety of complex and
dynamic situations.

The applied force to the cart is linear and easy to implement

to the system using AVR micro controller. Thereby the
suggested FSC in this paper is simplified and the RAM (read
access memory) requirements are reduced. In comparison with
some other controllers, the suggested FSC can be implemented
to the system conveniently [11-13].
It is known that as the number of rule bases increase, fuzzy
control becomes smoother. In the experimental result we use
13 rule bases. The efficiency and smoothness of FSC can be
improved by increasing the number of rule bases (Table 2).
Stabilization of both x and was proved bye stabilization of
each linear equivalent systems. Also, the applied force to the
cart is bounded and small. So, it is suitable to apply to a DC
motor. Some other controllers could not be implemented [3-6,
8-10].
IV.

CONCLUSION

Three critical issues in inverted pendulum controllers are

classic, intelligent and hybrid controllers. Fuzzy controller in

Table 2. System result for different number of rule bases

No. of rule bases

10
experimental

13
experimental

17
experimental

25
experimental

13
simulation

Settling time of

20 sec

17 sec

15 sec

14 sec

10 sec

Settling time of x

20 sec

17 sec

Uncertainty of

about 1

about 2

Uncertainty of x

about 2cm

Stable confine of

20

30

15 sec
D

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14 sec

about 2D

about 2cm

about 2cm

about 5cm

45

55

90D

about 2

10 sec
D

A. Poorhossein and A. Vahidian-Kamyad Design and Implementation of Sugeno Controller for Inverted Pendulum on a Cart System

[8]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank control, welding and CNC
laboratories of Ferdowsi university of Mashhad providing
opportunity to implement inverted pendulum system with
designed controller.

[9]
[10]

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