The double pendulum problem#

This animation illustrates the double pendulum problem.

Double pendulum formula translated from the C code at http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~wheat/dpend_html/solve_dpend.c

Output generated via matplotlib.animation.Animation.to_jshtml.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from numpy import cos, sin

import matplotlib.animation as animation

G = 9.8  # acceleration due to gravity, in m/s^2
L1 = 1.0  # length of pendulum 1 in m
L2 = 1.0  # length of pendulum 2 in m
L = L1 + L2  # maximal length of the combined pendulum
M1 = 1.0  # mass of pendulum 1 in kg
M2 = 1.0  # mass of pendulum 2 in kg
t_stop = 2.5  # how many seconds to simulate
history_len = 500  # how many trajectory points to display


def derivs(t, state):
    dydx = np.zeros_like(state)

    dydx[0] = state[1]

    delta = state[2] - state[0]
    den1 = (M1+M2) * L1 - M2 * L1 * cos(delta) * cos(delta)
    dydx[1] = ((M2 * L1 * state[1] * state[1] * sin(delta) * cos(delta)
                + M2 * G * sin(state[2]) * cos(delta)
                + M2 * L2 * state[3] * state[3] * sin(delta)
                - (M1+M2) * G * sin(state[0]))
               / den1)

    dydx[2] = state[3]

    den2 = (L2/L1) * den1
    dydx[3] = ((- M2 * L2 * state[3] * state[3] * sin(delta) * cos(delta)
                + (M1+M2) * G * sin(state[0]) * cos(delta)
                - (M1+M2) * L1 * state[1] * state[1] * sin(delta)
                - (M1+M2) * G * sin(state[2]))
               / den2)

    return dydx

# create a time array from 0..t_stop sampled at 0.02 second steps
dt = 0.01
t = np.arange(0, t_stop, dt)

# th1 and th2 are the initial angles (degrees)
# w10 and w20 are the initial angular velocities (degrees per second)
th1 = 120.0
w1 = 0.0
th2 = -10.0
w2 = 0.0

# initial state
state = np.radians([th1, w1, th2, w2])

# integrate the ODE using Euler's method
y = np.empty((len(t), 4))
y[0] = state
for i in range(1, len(t)):
    y[i] = y[i - 1] + derivs(t[i - 1], y[i - 1]) * dt

# A more accurate estimate could be obtained e.g. using scipy:
#
#   y = scipy.integrate.solve_ivp(derivs, t[[0, -1]], state, t_eval=t).y.T

x1 = L1*sin(y[:, 0])
y1 = -L1*cos(y[:, 0])

x2 = L2*sin(y[:, 2]) + x1
y2 = -L2*cos(y[:, 2]) + y1

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5, 4))
ax = fig.add_subplot(autoscale_on=False, xlim=(-L, L), ylim=(-L, 1.))
ax.set_aspect('equal')
ax.grid()

line, = ax.plot([], [], 'o-', lw=2)
trace, = ax.plot([], [], '.-', lw=1, ms=2)
time_template = 'time = %.1fs'
time_text = ax.text(0.05, 0.9, '', transform=ax.transAxes)


def animate(i):
    thisx = [0, x1[i], x2[i]]
    thisy = [0, y1[i], y2[i]]

    history_x = x2[:i]
    history_y = y2[:i]

    line.set_data(thisx, thisy)
    trace.set_data(history_x, history_y)
    time_text.set_text(time_template % (i*dt))
    return line, trace, time_text


ani = animation.FuncAnimation(
    fig, animate, len(y), interval=dt*1000, blit=True)
plt.show()

Total running time of the script: (0 minutes 25.958 seconds)

Gallery generated by Sphinx-Gallery