A hydraulically actuated compound pendulum

This paper describes the design, manufacture, and implementation of an experimental apparatus, namely, a "rotational compound pendulum", which is currently under development in the Controls Lab at the Mechanical Engineering Department at Kansas State University. The project is partially funded by the National Science Foundation. The paper gives a complete description of the design, manufacture and construction of the pendulum. The closed-loop simulation results based on the preliminary knowledge of the system parameters are given for one example controller design. The use of this "proof-of-concept" apparatus to study various control methodologies is described and its usefulness in undergraduate and graduate education and/or research is outlined.