Experimental Study of the Accuracy of a Pendulum Clock with a Vibrating Pivot Point

The paper experimentally investigates the problem of the influence of periodic vibrations of the pivot point of a physical pendulum on its nonlinear oscillations in the vicinity of a stable equilibrium position on the vertical. The vibrations are assumed to be periodic and occur in the plane of the pendulum’s motion along an elliptical trajectory. In the experimental plane of parameters: the amplitude of pendulum oscillations and the parameter characterizing the difference in the vibration intensity of the pivot point in the horizontal and vertical directions, the values at which the pendulum clock gains and delays are selected. The experiment showed that with a vibration of 7.0 Hz, which is more intense in the horizontal direction, the oscillation period of the pendulum angle increases by 0.017 seconds compared to the pendulum’s natural period. In contrast, with vibration more intense in the vertical direction, the period decreases by 0.0164 seconds. The experiments were carried out on an ABB IRB 1600 industrial robot manipulator with a developed pendulum and a reflector with a lens system for a laser tracker installed at the end effector of the robot. Tracking of the trajectory of the pendulum pivot point was carried out using an API Radian Pro laser tracker, the amplitude and frequency of pendulum oscillations were recorded using a machine vision camera and image processing methods.