This work reports on the design and development of an inverted pendulum using a control moment gyro as a stabilizing mechanism. A common educational demonstration calls for a person to stand on a pivoting platform, and hold a spinning bicycle tire with one hand on each side of the axle. As the person rotates their arms, they begin to spin on the platform. This is due to the interesting effect of the control moment gyro. Similarly, this paper suggests the use of control moment gyros as a compact way of dynamically controlling objects. This paper will first discuss some of the current applications of control moment gyro systems, and how they could be used to improve existing technologies. This paper derives the dynamics of a particular gyroscope influenced pendulum, and shows a simple way to design a controller that stabilizes the pendulum. With the theory and background in place, experimental results are presented to verify the predicted response and validate the control approach. Finally, this paper will evaluate some of the strengths and weakness of this control approach, compared to other balancing techniques.
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