A Lego Mindstorms NXT experiment for Model Predictive Control education

Abstract

This paper presents an educational framework based on the Lego Mindstorms NXT robotic platform used to outline both the theoretical and practical aspects of the Model Predictive Control theory. The case of a two-wheeled inverted pendulum is considered as at-size scenario. For such a system, starting from its mathematical modeling, an established design methodology is presented aiming to outline step-by-step the predictive controller implementation on a low-power architecture. The effectiveness of this multidisciplinary approach is illustrated along this presentation and demonstrated with experimental results.