The Reaction Wheel Pendulum: An Interactive Virtual Laboratory for Control Education

Abstract

This paper describes a virtual laboratory which illustrates a real-world application of fundamental control principles: the Reaction Wheel Pendulum. The goal of the paper is to motivate students to learn in a practical way different fundamental aspects of control processes. The laboratory has been developed using the programming support provided by Easy Java Simulations, an open-source tool for teachers with limited programming skills who want to create Java applications and applets.