A sliding mode variable structure controller is designed in this paper for the two-stage inverted pendulum, and the parameters of controller is given by pole placement method. The simplex optimization method based on the performance index of integrated time and absolute error (ITAE) to optimize the parameters of controller is purposed for the difficulty of parameter debugging. Based on the experiment device of the two-stage inverted pendulum, the parameter optimized sliding mode variable structure controller is simulated and experimentally studied. The results show that the controller whose parameters is given by pole placement method in this paper is effective to control the experiment device, and control effect of is better after the parameters optimized using the simplex optimization method. Meanwhile, the optimization method avoids the problem of parameters' trial to get a better control effect.