Dynamics and control design project offers taste of real world

A design project in dynamics and control performed by a group of seven senior students during one semester is described. The objective was to construct a wedge-shaped object and balance it in the inverted position. The degree of complexity of the dynamics of this wedge system is comparable to the well-known inverted pendulum and ball-on-a-rail experiments. The main advantage of the wedge experiment is that the design of the plant's dynamic structure is a part of the project.<<ETX>>