Robust stabilization control of a spatial inverted pendulum using integral sliding mode controller

From the last few decades, inverted pendulums have become a benchmark problem in dynamics and control theory. Due to their inherit nature of nonlinearity, instability and underactuation, these are widely used to verify and implement emerging control techniques. Moreover, the dynamics of inverted pendulum systems resemble many real-world systems such as segways, humanoid robots etc. In the literature, a wide range of controllers had been tested on this problem, out of which, the most robust being the sliding mode controller while the most optimal being the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller. The former has a problem of non-robust reachability phase while the later lacks the property of robustness. To address these issues in both the controllers, this paper presents the novel implementation of integral sliding mode controller (ISMC) for stabilization of a spatial inverted pendulum (SIP), also known as an x-y-z inverted pendulum. The structure has three control inputs and five controlled outputs. Mathematical modeling of the system is done using Euler Lagrange approach. ISMC has an advantage of eliminating non-robust reachability phase along with enhancing the robustness of the nominal controller (LQR Controller). To validate the robustness of ISMC to matched uncertainties, an input disturbance is added to the nonlinear model of the system. Simulation results on two different case studies demonstrate that the proposed controller is more robust as compared to conventional LQR controller. Furthermore, the problem of chattering in the controller is dealt by smoothening the controller inputs to the system with insignificant loss in robustness.