1

State-Feedback Control of Wheeled Inverted

Pendulum : Pole Placement Method

Nico Hasoloan
Departemen Teknik Mesin, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS)
Jl. Arief Rahman Hakim, Surabaya 60111 Indonesia
email : nicohasoloan07@gmail.com

Abstract – Control System currently used and develop widely in
this world. Its because by using Control System, human will no
longer have to do most of his work manually. One of the problem
in using Control System is the stability of the system. Because, if
the system unstable, it will be resulting high number of error. To
overcome this problem, there are several method to make the
system become stable.This paper introduces a method to design a
Full State Feedback controller for a Wheeled Inverted Pendulum
using Pole Placement Method. The WIM will be modelled
mathematically using Euler-Lagrange approach. The model later
will be simulated in simulink with several condition to find out
what are the parameters to make the optimum pole position.
II. MODELLING WHEELED INVERTED
PENDULUM
Wheeled Inverted Pendulum system is consist of two wheel
with radius (r) and mass (Mw) that connected by a connecting
rod. The wheel placed at both end of the connecting rod. At
the centre of the connecting rod placed a pendulum that has
mass (Mp) and length (L) and can rotate along alpha (α). The
wheel itself can translate and rotate along theta (θ). System of
Wheeled Inverted Pendulum is shown in Figure (1) below :

Keywords — Inverted Pendulum, Pole Placement Method, Full

State Feedback Control.

I. INTRODUCTION
owdays Wheeled Inverted Pendulum is one of the mostly
N use mechanic system. One of the vehicle that use
Wheeled Inverted Pendulum system is Segway. The control in
Wheeled Inverted Pendulum system, keeps the Wheeled
Inverted Pendulum stands still. The control system will
stabilize the system by moving the pendulum and the wheel.
Wheeled Inverted Pendulum itself has nonlinear characteristic.
Because of the nonlinearities of the system, Wheeled Inverted
Pendulum is hard to develop and many people prefer to
Figure 1. Wheeled Inverted Pendulum
develop another mechanism. But this system can be solved
using linear approach. This paper will discuss on how to make To analyze the system further, the Wheeled Inverted
control system of Wheeled Inverted Pendulum mechanism. To Pendulum system has to be modelled into mathematical form.
make the control design, first the Wheeled Inverted Pendulum From Figure (1), The Wheeled Inverted Pendulum system can
mechanism has to be mathematically modelled. In this paper, be broke down into two sub-systems. By assuming the center
the system will mathematically modelled using Euler- mass of the pendulum is at the middle of the pendulum, F is
Lagrange’s equation approach. From mathematical model, a force applied to the wheel, g is gravity acceleration and N is
state space model of the system can be found by linearize the normal force, Free-Body Diagram of the system can be made
mathematical model. The state space form of the system than as shown in Figure 2.
simulated and tested in matlab. Pole Placement Method is
used to design the controller of Wheeled Inverted Pendulum.
By place several poles in the system, the system expected to
operates stable.
 2

Equation (5) shows the dynamic of the Wheel Inverted

Pendulum system. The equation above are nonlinear and needs
to be linearized in order to design linear controller. By using :
( position of wheel ) (6)
̇ ̇ ( velocity of wheel ) (7)
( pendulum angle ) (8)
̇ ̇ ( pendulum angular rate ) (9)
u = Ʈ ( Torque applied to the wheel ) (10)
The derivation of Lagrangian become :
Figure 2. Free-Body Diagram of Wheel and Pedulum
̈ ̇
( )
̈ (11)

Where
JT = Iwheel + Mwheel rw2 + Mpendulum rw2 (12)

Table 1. Inverted Pendulum Nomenclature ii. State Space Model

i. Mathematical Model The system then can be represented in state space form, where
By using data provided by table 1, mathematical form of the the space vector :
system can be found using Euler-Lagrange’s equation f = [ dx1 dx2 dx3 dx4 ]T
approach. By using figure (2), the kinetic energy of wheel and = [ ̇ ̈ ̇ ̈ ]T (13)
pendulum can be form as : And the state space representation :
̇
y (14)
The system matrix become :
(1)

̇
( ( ) )
(2)
[ ]
The total kinetic energy of the system can be form as :

( ( ) )
=

(3)
[ ]
Potential energy of the pendulum can be form as :
* +
( ) (4)
* +
Since potential energy of the wheel is zero due to the wheel
has no altitude, the mathematical model of the system can be Where,
formed using Lagrangian equation below :
(15)
( ( ) ) By entering value from table 1, the matrix system become :

( ) (5)
 3

̇ (16)
[ ] By using MATLAB, the system can be modelled as block
diagram as show in figure 4 and figure 5.

[ ]

* +

* +

iii. Controllability and Stabilityof the system

Before designing a controller, controllability of the system has
Figure 3. Closed Loop Full State Feedback System Block
to be checked, in order to inspect if all modes are controllable.
Diagram
To check controllability of the system, matrix A, B, C have to
be checked whether the matrix full rank or not.
P = [ B AB A2B A3B]

P= [ ]

det |P| = 2.5672e+13

Figure 4. Wheeled Inverted Pendulum with State Feedback

[ ] Control modelled in Simulink

Since the determinant of P ≠ 0 and rank = [B AB A2B A3B] =

n = 4, the system considered controllable. To check the
stability of the system, eigen values of matrix A has to be
calculated. From the calculation, there are three eigen value
that have positive value. It indicates that the system is Figure 5. Wheeled Inverted Pendulum without State Feedback
unstable. From stability and controllability check result, Control modelled in Simulink
Wheeled Inverted Pendulum can be considered unstable, but
controllable. IV. SIMULATION RESULT
By using the model in figure 4, the system then run in
III. STATE FEEDBACK CONTROL DESIGN Simulink. To get the best pole location for the system, the
In order to make the system stable, the eigen value of matrix A model run in 5 condition as shown below :
needs to be negative. From previous result, the system still has Pole 1 Pole 2
Condition
three positive eigen value. By using Full State Feedback Horizontal axis Imaginary axis Horizontal axis Imaginary axis
control as , the system able to use all state spaces output as 1 -10 ±10j -20 ±15j
2 -12 ±10j -22 ±15j
feedback. The output of the power plant will be multiplied 3 -8 ±10j -18 ±15j
with value of gain (K), then use as feedback to control the 4 -10 ±12j -10 ±17j
input to power plant. In order to make the eigen value of 5 -10 ±8j -10 ±13j

matrix A become negative, Pole Placement Method will be
applied to this system. This method used by putting several
pole into the system. By putting several pole, the value of
matrix K (gain) will be changed. By assuming there is
disturbance in the system, the close loop equation with
feedback of the system become :
From the simulation done in simulink for condition one, the
system response vs time can be found as shown in figure 6. In
figure 6, response of state space 1 represent as yellow line and
repsones of state space 3 represent as red line.

Figure 6. System Response Vs Time for condition 1
Based on the result from figure six, the maximum amplitude
of state space 1 is 0.35, and the rise time of state space 1 is
41.795 ms. For state space 3, the maximum amplitude is 1.78
and the rise time value is 4.400 ms. From the simulation done
in simulink for condition two, the system response vs time can
be found as shown in figure 7. In figure 7, response of state
space 1 represent as yellow line and repsones of state space 3
represent as red line.
Figure 6. System Response Vs Time for condition 2
Based on the result from figure six, the maximum amplitude
of state space 1 is 0.26, and the rise time of state space 1 is
27.250 ms. For state space 3, the maximum amplitude is 1.45
and the rise time value is 8.427 ms. From the simulation done
in simulink for condition four, the system response vs time can
be found as shown in figure 8. In figure 8, response of state
space 1 represent as yellow line and repsones of state space 3
represent as red line. Based on the result from figure seven,
the maximum amplitude of state space 1 is 0.26, and the rise
time of state space 1 is 29.680 ms. For state space 3, the
maximum amplitude is 1.78 and the rise time value is 3.920
ms. By take a look at those result, the maximum amplitude of
state one is came from condition two. The maximum
amplitude of state space three is came from condition two. The
biggest rise time of state space one came from condition 1.
And for state space 3, the biggest rise time is came from
condition 2.
4
Figure 7. System Response Vs Time for condition 4
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, Pole Placement Method is used to make Wheel
Inverted Pendulum system become stable. Based on
simulation of the Wheel Inverted Pendulum system using
several condition, it has been found that by moving the pole to
the left side of the real axis by keeping the value in imaginary
axis constant, the amplitude of the state space response will be
decreased and the value of rise time also will be decreased.
And by increasing the value on imaginary axis while keep the
value on real axis remain constant, it has been found that the
value of amplitude remain constant and the rise time will be
decreased.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] Williams II, Robert L. and Douglas A. Lawrence,
1962.”Linear State Space Control System”. John Wiley
& Sons Inc.
[2] Bitirgen, Rahman, Muhsin Hanser, and Ismael Bayezit.
(2018, March). All Stabilizing Feedback Controler for
Inverted Pendulum Mechanism. IFAC [Online].
http://www.sciencedirect.com/
[3] Yamakawa,Satoko. (2011). Tracking Control of Wheeled
Inverted Pendulum Based on Time State Control Form.
IFAC [Online]. http://www.sciencedirect.com
[4] Brisillia, R. M. and V. Sankaranarayanan(2015).
Nonlinear Control of Mobile Inverted Pendulum. Elsevier
[Online]. http://www.sciencedirect.com
[5] Dai, Fuquan, Gao Xueshan, Shigong Jiang, Wenzeng
Guo, and Yubai Liu. (2015, July). A Two-Wheeled
Inverted Pendulum Robot With Friction Compesation.
Elsevier [Online]. http://www.sciencedirect.com