See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251937197

A Simplified Intelligent Controller for Ball and

Beam System
Article June 2010
DOI: 10.1109/ICETC.2010.5529491

CITATIONS

READS

17

201

4 authors, including:
Muhammad Amjad

Saman Abdullah

The Islamia University of Bahawalpur

University of Malaya

31 PUBLICATIONS 371 CITATIONS

23 PUBLICATIONS 180 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

SEE PROFILE

Zeeshan Shareef
Technische Universitt Braunschweig
15 PUBLICATIONS 40 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE

All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate,

letting you access and read them immediately.

Available from: Muhammad Amjad

Retrieved on: 10 October 2016

20i0 2nd international Conference on Education Technology and Computer (ICETC)

A Simplified Intelligent Controller for Ball and Beam System

Z.Shareef

M. Amjad, KashifM.I., S.S Abdullah,

Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences

(PlEAS).
Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Faculty of Electrical Engineering,

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

zeeshan iiee@yahoo.com

amjadutm@gmail.com, kashif9744@gmail.com
Abstract- Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) performance is greatly
dependent on its inference rules.

In most cases, the more rules

being applied to a FLC, the accuracy of the control action is

enhanced.

Nevertheless, a large set of rules requires more

computation time. As a result, FLC implementation requires fast

and high performance processors. In this paper, it is shown that
the inference rule table of a two-input FLCs used to control a ball
and beam system can be reduced to form a Single Input Fuzzy
Logic Controller (SIFLC), which can be easily implemented using
a lookup table. Simulated results are presented to demonstrate
the better dynamic performance of the ball and beam using
SIFLC compared to the conventional FLC (CFLC) and classical
PID.

Keywords- Ball and Beam, Fuz'l,Y Logic Controller, ITAE,

Signed Distance Method, Single Input Fuz'l,Y Logic Control, PID.

I.

INTRODUCTION

An important set of existing systems of process industries

are unstable by nature and essentially require feedback control
for effective and safe performance [1]. However, a vital
problem arises in the study of such real, unstable systems is
that they cannot be brought into the laboratory for analyses.
Due to its simplistic design and dynamic characteristics, ball
balancing beam seems to be an ideal model for complex, non
linear control methods.
The ball and beam system is known to be the benchmark for
both classical and modem control techniques. This system is
widely used because of its simplicity to understand as a system
and provides the opportunity to analyze the control techniques.
The control task is to automatically adjust the position of the
ball on beam by changing the control input i.e. angle of the
beam. This is a complex task because the ball does not stay in
one place on the beam but moves all the way with an
acceleration that is proportional to the tilt of the beam. This
system is an open loop unstable as the system output (ball
position) is unbounded to a bounded input (beam angle).
Therefore, a feedback control must be employed to maintain
the ball in a desired position on the beam.
Although PID control is a proficient technique for the
handling of non-linear systems but modeling these systems is
often troublesome and sometimes impossible using the laws of
physics. Therefore, using a classical controller is not suitable
for nonlinear control application [2]. Alternatively, Fuzzy
Logic Control are useful when the processes are too complex
978-1-4244-6370-11$26.00 2010 IEEE

for analysis by conventional quantitative techniques or when

the available sources of information are interpreted
qualitatively, inexactly, or uncertainly [3]. It does not require
any system modeling or complex mathematical equations
governing the relationship between inputs and outputs. Fuzzy
rules are very easy to learn and use, even by non-experts. It
typically takes only a few rules to describe systems that may
require several lines of conventional software code, which
reduces the design complexity [4].
Even though modem control methods are very promising
for non-linear control applications, they require substantial
computational power because of complex decision making
processes. For example FLC has to deal with fuzzification,
rule base storage, inference mechanism and defuzzification
operations. Larger set of rules yields more accurate control at
the expense of longer computational time. Therefore it may
not be practical because there are many implementation
aspects that must be addressed, namely real-time response,
communication bandwidth, computational capacity and
onboard battery. The use of NN is also thought to be
impractical due to its unpredictability, particularly when real
time self-tuning is considered [5]. Despite these issues, it is
known that FLC requires simpler mathematics and offers
higher degree of freedom in tuning its control parameters
compared to other nonlinear controllers [6].
It is envisaged that it is possible to take full advantages of
FLC for AUV application if the computational time of FLC is
minimized. In this paper, the Single Input Fuzzy Controller
(SIFLC) is proposed. The SIFLC is a simplification of the
conventional Fuzzy Controller (CFLC). It is achieved by
applying the "signed distance method" [7] where the input to
SIFLC is only one variable known as "distance". This is in
contrast to the CFLC which requires an error and the
derivative (change) of the error as its inputs. The reduction in
the number of inputs simplifies the rule table to one
dimensional, allowing it to be treated as a single input single
output (SISO) controller. Comparatively, the SIFLC reduces
the computational burden of the processor because it has less
number of rules to compute. Moreover, the rules can be
approximated as a piecewise control surface and can be
constructed using a simple look-up table [8]. To verify this
idea, simulation of a ball and beam using SIFLC is carried out.
The results are compared to the CFLC and classical PID
applied on the same system

V3-494

2010 2nd International Conjrence on Education Technology and Computer (ICETC)

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In

Section II, we have presented a mathematical modeling of the
ball and beam system. Section III discusses a design scheme of
PID controller and CFLC. Section IV describes the design of
SIFLC. In Section V, a comparison has been made between
three controllers based on simulation results. Finally in section
VI, we have concluded all the discussion presented in our
paper.
II.

2
Jb =5" rna 2

(4)

Where Jb is the moment of inertial of the ball, and a is the

radius of the ball.
The torque balance is given by

(5)

MATHEMATIC MODELING

The Ball & Beam Control system is a multi-loop system

which comprises of two parts. One is the mathematical model
of the dc motor followed by mathematical model of the ball
and beam system. The typical ball & beam control system is
shown in the Fig. 1.

Where the subscript

'h

bm

denotes the beam and motor, and

represents the torque generated by the motor. The torque

relation is given by
(6)
Where K( is motor torque constant, and lin is the current

Ball

supplied to the motor.

From (1-6), it can be shown that a linearized model at 0
can be written as

Beam
Desired

Position

(7)

Figure 1. Ball and Beam Control System

A.

Mathematical Model of the Ball and Beam

The system diagram given in Fig. 1 shows that there are

three main components are involved in the system which
includes moments and forces acting on them, the motor, the
beam, and the ball. To simplify the design, the motor shaft and
beam are considered to be the rigid body (i-e the stiffness
across the transmission to be near the plane of ball contact,
and there is no skidding). The sum of forces at the point of
intersection can be written as

'iF;, =rng sin <I>

Fr =rn x

Where 'a' is the angular displacement of the ball and (a') is

the diameter of the ball used and (g) is gravity [9].

B.

Mathematical Model ofMotor

Based on the motor parameters, Km=O.7Irevlsecivolts, ,=

0.014 sec, J=1.4X 10.6 Kg_m2, motor model can be written as
Gm (s) =

(1)

__ 0._ 7__
=
s(0.01 4s+1)
lines)
8(s)

(8)

Where the subscript b denotes forces acting on the ball, m

is the mass of the ball, g is gravity, Fr is the rolling constraint
forces on the ball and X is the position of the ball along the
beam. By geometry, the position can be defined as
x=a'a

C.

Overall Model ofBall and Beam System

Based on the ball and beam specification of a =1. 5cm

(Radius of the ball), a' =9.4227cm (for 27r), an overall model
of the system can be written as

(2)
G (s ) =
T

Where a is the angular displacement of the ball, and a' is

the distance between the axis of rotation of the ball and point
of contact of the ball with the beam. The torque balance of the
ball, 'b is also a product of the rolling constraint force as

III.

A.
(3)

0.7
0.0234s4+1.713s3+1.1991s2

DESIGN METHODOLOGY OF PID AND

(9 )

FLC CONTROLLER

PID Controller

Fig. 2 shows the block diagram of the whole system. It

consists of two loops: (1) Inner motor control loop (2) outer
ball and beam loop. The design strategy is to first stabilize the
inner loop followed by an outer loop control.

V3-495

2010 2nd International Conference on Education Technology andf,RffegerftETf6

LE BASE

GD ++o{::J 1 -=1 i

:i::

NL

Figure 2. Block Diagram of Ball and Beam System

NM

There are number of techniques to design the PID controller

which involves Zigler and Nichols, SISO Tool, ITAE
Equations, root locus, frequency reponse etc. In our design, we
have used the ITAE equations for the PO and PID gains
computation. The performance index ITAE provides the best
selectivity of the performance indices; that is, the minimum
value of the integral is readily discernible as the system
parameters are varied [12]. The general form of the
performance integral is
I

Z"

N,

PS

NL

PI.-

PS

PL

,PL

NM

NL

NL

NL

NL

PL

NL

NL,

'RS

,tJS

J'S
,

'fL

,NS
,
,

Saturation
Region

PL

J'L

f
I

NL

PL

NS

, . 'I""S 'N ' , aturation

Region
,
'" .1' , , ,
, , , "'- , , N ' l"WM
, , , '{'M, , ,
,
, , , ,pM, , 'R , . ''s r-.L
1
r-.L
, ' 'M

PL

PlVt

PL

f f(e(t), r(t), y(t), t)dt

PM

NS

PM

PL

NL

,,

"

NM

PS

\ ,
\ \

NS

Lz

Using standard ITAE equations [11], PD controllers are

written as [12].

Gmolor(Controller)(S)
GSall(Conlroller)(S)
B.

IV.
=

2s

+ 11

(10)

5s2 +6s+0.2
=

(11)

-----

Conventional Fuzzy Logic Controller(CFLC)

A detailed description of the CFLC design is given in [10).

The input and output membership functions are shown in Fig.3
and Fig. 4 respectively.
NL

NM

NS

PS

PM

PL

A.

DESIGN METHODOLOGY OF SIFLC

The Signed Distance Method

Fuzzy Logic controller (FLC) is a linguistic-based

controller that tries to emulate the way human thinking in
solving a particular problem by means of rule inferences.
Typically, a FLC has two controlled inputs, namely error (e)
and the change of error ( e). Its rule table can be created on a

two-dimensional space of the phase-plane (e , e ) as shown in

Table I. It is common for the rule table to have the same
output membership in a diagonal direction. Additionally, each
point on the particular diagonal lines has a magnitude that is
proportional to the distance from its main diagonal line Lz.
This is known as the Toeplitz structure. The Toeplitz property
is true for all FLC types which use the error and its derivative
terms, namely e, e .. and e(n-I) as input variables [8].
The main diagonal line can be represented by
(12)

Figure 3. Input e and

NL

NM

NS

/";.e

Membership Function
PS

PM

Where, variable A is the slope magnitude of the mam

diagonal line Lz. The distance d can be written as [8].

PL

(13)

The overall structure of SIFLC can be depicted as a block

diagram in Fig. 1 and the corresponding reduced table IS
shown in table II. The output equation can be written as

Figure 4. Output Membership Function

The rule base used in the design is given in Table II. The
rule base follows closely the rules that were suggested in [3].
V3-496

(14)

Signed-distance method

2010 2nd international Conference on Education Technology and Computer (ICETC)

Signed distance method
1
1
1
1
1
1

---------------

Control sunace

1
1

:/-;===='--:

1
1
1
L ______________ J

Figure 5. The SIFLC control structure

Figure 7. SIFLC structure for Ball and Beam

TABLE II. THE REDUCED RULE TABLE USING THE SIGNED
DISTANCE METHOD

Fig. 8 and 9 show the error and control input for all three types of

LNL

LNM

LNS

Lz

Lps

LpM

LPL

ito

NL

NM

NS

PS

PM

PL

controllers. Fig. 10 illustrates the output response for all three

controllers.

It can be seen that SIFLC gives better performance in

terms of dynamic and steady state response. Fig. 11 demonstrates the

proposed SIFLC controller Simulink block diagram of the system.

The main advantage of SIFLC is the significant reduction

of the rules that needs to be inferred. In conventional FLC,
two inputs are fuzzified and depending on the level of
fuzzification p, the number of rules to be inferred is p2 , while
the distinguishing features of SIFLC is that, it requires only p
rules. The reduction in the number of rules results in faster
calculation in SIFLC. Fig. 6 shows the linear control surface
used in the design. The proposed SIFLC structure is depicted
in Fig. 7. The equation for the mentioned surface can be
written as

-- t- -- ""1 -1

0.6

0.4
0.2

(15)

-.1.__________

__

2
--'
-O. 0L-- -'------'----'--4L--.JS:---.L6 ----:':---.18.---'9:-- 10
TIme(Sec)

Output Uo

Figure 8. Error Response for Both Controllers

Control surface
,

r-----------------...

---- ------ ---

___

} ____________ ------.. _________ 1...32.. __

I
I

I
I

,
,
,
,
,
r--'---I-------- ...... --------------I
I

I
I

i
ii
:
+

------

--

--------

-1

-0.65 -{)33

...... ---------------

I
I
I
,---I, -----1"--,---,-... --------------I

I
I

I
I

I
I

::

I
I

I
I
I

::

I
I

1
I

--I---I---------II_-- ---------- _...- __

i
I
I
I

iii
I

+I

NL I

i
I
I
I

I
I
I

.lll:' l' I' l.

-2

- 1.32-0.65 0 0.65

Output sets

1.32

I
I

I
I

0 0

:
,

10 ,---,---,---,

I
I

l:J3M1fi1put d
I

.66:: :

-1.321
I
-2 I
I
I
I
I
I

I
I
I

I
I

I
I
I

i,I:
t A
I
I
I

-1-

I
I
I
I
I
I

1-

c
o
U

I
I

:
P : :
:
PS P

- -I"

.EO

PL

-,
-1 - -

-+

1" --I
T

1- -

...

t-

I- -

L __ .J

- r -

1-

- -t --

.,

-,-

-2
,1
,
,

Universe of discours

Figure 6. SIFLC Control surface with one break point

5
6
TIme(Sec)

10

Figure 9. Control Input Response for Both Controllers

V3-497

20iO 2nd international Conference on Education Technology and ComplJter (iCETC)

V.

1.4 ,-

1.2

- .1 ___1___ L __ ..J ___ L __ .1 ___1___ L __ ...J __

,
I

0.8

0.6

0.4

- -

,,.- I
1
I
I
I
I
- --1- - - r- - I
I
I
I
I
I
- --, - - - r - -

II
/
-t -1-1- - -l't- I l I
.... I
I l
I .... I
,
I '" I
l- - -1 -.:'- - r 1/
1/
"

.(

/,

- - :' - -;"'-1- - :I i I
I
,I.'"
_ .: J/ __1_ __
t....;
I

- -

.,(, I

"
-

I
I
I
I
-t - - -1- - - t- - - ""1-I
I
I
I
I __
REF
,
I
"T -- PID
- -, - I
CFLC

..........

----- SIFLC

- - - 1- - -

I
I

L. __ 1 ___
I
I

____

5
6
TIme(Sec)

__

!..

VI.

I
I

10

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank The Islamia University of

Bahawalpur Pakistan and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for
providing the facilities to allow the conduct of this research.

[6]

K. Liu and F. L. Lewis, " Some issues about fuzzy logic control", the
32nd conference on decision and control,pp 1743-1748, December 1993.

[7]

Choi, B. J., Kwak, S. W., and Kim, B. K. "Design and Stability

Analysis of Single-Input Fuzzy Logic Controller". IEEE Transaction on
Systems, Man and Cybernetics-Part B: Cybernetics. 2000. 30(2): 303309.

[8]

S. M. Ayob, N. A. Azli and Z. Salam, "PWM DC-AC Converter

Regulation using a Multi-Loop Single Input Fuzzy PI Controller",
Journal of Power Electronics, Vol. 9( 1),pp. 124- 13 1, January 2009.

REFERENCES

Peter

We IIstead,

"Ball

and

Beam

CONCLUSION

An attempt to control the position of a ball in a ball and

beam system using fuzzy logic has been proposed. From the
simulation results, it has been shown that the fuzzy controller
can stabilize the system efficiently. Also, the performance
during the transient period of the fuzzy system is better in the
sense that less overshoot was obtained. Moreover, the fuzzy
controller provides a zero steady state error.

_____

Figure 10. Output Response of PID, FLC and SIFLC

[I]

COMPARISON

From the simulation result shown in figure 10, it can be

observe that the SIFLC controller offers better dynamic and
steady state response compare to both CFLC and PID. In both
SIFLC and CFLC, no overshoots is detected compared to 16%
in the classical case. The classical PID controller has a steady
state error of 5% compare to a zero steady state error in SIFLC
and FLC while the settling time of SIFLC is found to be faster
than both CFLC and PID systems.
--,----,--,

I: Basics", http://www.control

systemsprinciples.co.lIk/whitepapers/ball-and-beam I.

[2]

Cihan Karakllzu, Sltkl iiztiirk ," A Comparison of Fuzzy, Neuro and

Classical Control Techniques Based on an Experimental Application",
University ofQuafaquaz,No. 6,pp 189- 198,July 2000.

[3]

C.C. Lee, "Fuzzy logic in control systems: fuzzy logic controller -Part I
and II", IEEE Trans. System Man Cybernet. SMC-20, pp. 404-435,
1990.

[4]

http://www.aptronix.com/fide/whyfuzzy.html.

[5]

I.S.Shaw, Fuzzy control of industrial systems -Theory and applications,

Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998.

[9]

Evencio A. Rosales, A Ball-on-Beam Project Kit, Department Of

Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June
2004
[ 10] Francis H. Raven. Automatic Control Engineering,5th ed, McGraw-Hili
Inc.
[II] D'Azzo, John J and Houpis, C. H. ( 1995). Linear Control System
Analysis and Design: Conventional and Modern, 4 th ed., McGraw-Hili
Inc.
[\2] M. Amjad, Kashif M.I., S.S Abdullah, Z.Shareef , " Fuzzy Logic
Control of Ball and Beam" ,2nd International conference on Electronic
Computer Technology (ICECT 2010), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,May 710,2010.

delta e

--J
Scope

Look-Up
Table

Figure 11. FLC Controller for Ball and Beam System

V3-498