Control of Pneumatically Actuated Inverted Wedge

The control of the inverted wedge actuated by a cylindrical pneumatic actuator is presented in this paper. The goal of this mechatronic application is to develop a digital controller that can maintain a balance of the wedge in an inverted position by moving the cylinder slider across the top of it. This balancing mechanism can be considered as a two degrees-of-freedom planar robot controlled by a single control input (which is the force that accelerates the slider left or right). Because it is an under-actuated system with a non-minimum phase characteristic and nonlinear actuator dynamics, this experimental model offers great possibilities to learn design in a mechatronic way.