The pole balancing problem: a benchmark control theory problem

The pole-balancing problem is a pseudo-standard benchmark problem from the field of control theory and artificial neural networks for designing and testing controllers on complex and unstable nonlinear systems. The intention of this work is to provide a canonical definition and description of this well studied problem domain. Further, this work will provided sufficient detail to permit a novice to the problem to be able to implement the problem for a variety of techniques. It will be shown that the problem if flexible in that it can be represented and addressed in numerous ways from devising controller units for the problem online and offline to finding coefficient constants for existing linear models [Introduction].