Proportional Retarded Controller to Stabilize Underactuated Systems with Measurement Delays: Furuta Pendulum Case Study

The design and tuning of a simple feedback strategy with delay to stabilize a class of underactuated mechanical systems with dead time are presented. A linear time-invariant (LTI) model with time delay of fourth order and a Proportional Retarded (PR) controller are considered. The PR controller is shown as an appealing alternative to the application of observer-based controllers. This paper gives a step forward to obtain a better understanding of the effect of output delays and related phenomena in mechatronic systems, making it possible to design resilient control laws under the presence of uncertain time delays in measurements and obtain an acceptable performance without using a derivative action. The Furuta pendulum is a standard two-degrees-of-freedom benchmark example from the class of underactuated mechanical systems. The configuration under study includes an inherent output delay due to wireless communication used to transmit measurements of the pendulum’s angular position. Our approach offers a constructive design and a procedure based on a combination of root loci and Mikhailov methods for the analysis of stability. Experiments over a laboratory platform are reported and a comparison with a standard linear state feedback control law shows the advantages of the proposed scheme.