Control Design for the Interactive 3D-Pendulum Presented at the World Exhibition EXPO 2010

Abstract

The German Pavilion on the World Exhibition EXPO 2010 in Shanghai showed an interactive 3D-pendulum as one of its main attractions. The pendulum consists of a sphere with 3 m diameter which is equipped with several hundred thousand LEDs and used as a projection screen. The sphere is mounted via a long bar at an electrically driven crosstable which is used for the excitation of the pendulum. The crosstable is located in a theater-like building where the visitors can follow the show. Thereby, the sphere performs large circular and pendular motions, while the crosstable can only perform very small motions. Also during some parts of the show the sphere should move in a certain way which is obtained by interpreting the visitors' action as a physical excitation. In this paper the system and control design are discussed and experimental results are presented.