Chaos in a pendulum with feedback control

We study chaotic dynamics of a pendulum subjected to linear feedback control with periodic desired motions. The pendulum is assumed to be driven by a servo-motor with small inductance, so that the feedback control system reduces to a periodic perturbation of a planar Hamiltonian system. This Hamiltonian system can possess multiple saddle points with non-transverse homoclinic and/or heteroclinic orbits. Using Melnikov's method, we obtain criteria for the existence of chaos in the pendulum motion. The computation of the Melnikov functions is performed by a numerical method. Several numerical examples are given and the theoretical predictions are compared with numerical simulation results for the behavior of invariant manifolds.