Reaction Wheel

Video of Reaction Wheel Balancing an Inverted Pendulum

The 3D-Printed reaction wheel spins and balances the inverted pendulum, even when it is knocked off balance.

This video depicts a project I worked on for my senior design class, ECE 4760. An inverted pendulum is inherently unstable. My lab partners and I aimed to balance the pendulum using a 3D-printed reaction wheel. This reaction wheel provides torque and angular momentum. It is powered by a small servo motor which is controlled by a Pico microcontroller. To balance this wheel, my partners and I used a PID Controller. Sensors on the pendulum are used to calculate the angle. Depending on the position of the pendulum and how quickly the pendulum is moving, the servo reacts appropriately to keep the pendulum upright. In this video, the wheel is balancing the system. Even after getting repeatedly whacked with a pencil, the pendulum remains upright. The monitor behind the system shows the angle of the pendulum (bottom) and our controller's reaction (top).

If you would like to learn more about this project, here is some documentation at a lower level describing how this system was implemented and tested.