Designing Control and Regulation Strategies for a Thrust‑Vectoring Vehicle- (Inverted Pendulum)

In this project, we developed an experimental platform designed to study and test control strategies for a thrust‑vectoring vehicle. The goal was to create a controlled environment where the dynamic behavior of the system could be analyzed and stabilized using different control approaches.

- Project Overview
To enable precise testing, we built a three‑axis gimbal suspension, allowing the vehicle to rotate freely around independent axes. This setup provided a safe and repeatable way to observe the vehicle’s response to control inputs and external disturbances.

We also designed and constructed the experimental thrust‑vectoring prototype. Several iterations were required to achieve a configuration that performed reliably during testing.

- Challenges Encountered
During the experiments, two major issues emerged:

Electrical noise from the motors disrupted communication with the PC.

Mechanical vibrations interfered with the inertial measurement unit (IMU), making accurate data collection difficult.

To address these problems, we installed ferrite beads on communication lines to reduce electrical noise, and we mechanically isolated the IMU using a lead damping mass and a foam interface to minimize vibration transmission.

- Control & Data Processing
A microcontroller was programmed to read IMU data, send it to the computer, and control the vehicle’s motors and vanes according to the implemented algorithms.

We attempted to use MATLAB to estimate a mathematical model of the system. However, due to the vehicle’s highly nonlinear and unstable nature, the tools available were not sufficient to obtain accurate transfer functions.

- Controller Design
As a result, we adopted an empirical approach to design and tune controllers from the PID family. Through iterative adjustments, we evaluated different configurations.

The PI (Proportional–Integral) and full PID controllers delivered the best performance, successfully stabilizing the system and enabling robust orientation control even under external disturbances.

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Видео Designing Control and Regulation Strategies for a Thrust‑Vectoring Vehicle- (Inverted Pendulum) канала Basil Mohammed Al-Hadithi - باسل محمد الحديثي