Software Engineering Institute

An inverted pendulum has been used as the controlled device in a prototype real-time control system employing the Simplex architecture. In this report, we address the control issues of such a system in an analytic way. In particular, an analytic model of the system is derived; control algorithms are designed for the baseline control, experimental control and safety control based on the concept of analytic redundancy; the safety region is obtained as the stability region of the system under the safety control; and the control switching logic is established to provide fault tolerant functionality. Finally, the results obtained and the lessons learned are summarized, and future work is discussed.