Two-degrees-of-freedom speed control of resonant mechanical system based on H∞ control theory

In industrial motor drive systems such as those used in industrial plants and robots, a torsional vibration is often generated as a result of the elastic elements present in the torque transmission systems. This vibration makes it difficult to achieve quick speed responses and may result in plant damage. Such systems are simply modeled as two-mass mechanical systems. The H^∞ control theory is applied herein to design a speed controller for the two-mass system. This controller determines closed-loop characteristics, including suppression of torsional vibration, rejection of torque disturbance and robust stability. Moreover, two types of two-degrees-of-freedom control systems, which includes the H^∞ controller, are proposed to improve command response. One is based on the TDOF PI control, in which the PI controller included in the H^∞ controller is rearranged for the TDOF system. Another is based on the model matching feedforward control, in which the prefilter and the feedforward compensator are added to the H^∞ controller. The proposed control system is applied to two types of resonant mechanical systems having different inertia ratio. Several examinations demonstrate that the proposed speed control system is useful for a resonant mechanical system.     

Speed control system and design of resonant system with disturbance observer

In industrial motor drive systems such as industrial plants and industrial robots, a torsional vibration often is generated because of the elastic elements in torque transmission. This vibration makes it difficult to achieve quick responses of speed and may result in damage to the plant. Such systems simply are modeled as a two mass system. The shaft torque feedback system with the disturbance observer, which is called “resonance ratio control,” is proposed to suppress the vibration for the two-mass system. In this paper, the design of controller gains in the shaft torque feedback system is examined considering not only the control performance such as the vibration suppression and dynamic responses, but also the robust stability against the noise and the model uncertainties. This paper shows the validity of the control system and the examinations by several experiments.     

Measurement of mechanical parameters in two-mass resonant system using disturbance observer

In application fields for two-mass resonant system, control theory-based various techniques that use feed-forward/feedback control have been proposed to achieve high performance motion control. Although these schemes effectively suppress resonant vibration, they are quite sensitive to system parameters because the design of such controllers basically relies on system mechanical parameters. This paper presents a disturbance observer-based novel mechanical parameter measurement scheme for a two-mass resonant system. In the proposed measurement, load inertia and torsional constant of the resonant system can be measured by using error components of the estimated disturbance torque due to setting errors of the parameters in the observer. With this measurement algorithm no additional tool other than the observer is required for parameter measurement. The effectiveness of the proposed measurement scheme is verified by experimental results that are obtained by a prototype. © 1997 Scripta Technica, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 118 (2): 19–29, 1997     

Active vibration control of a motor system by using H∞ control theory

This paper considers the vibration control of a motor system which has a motor and a load connected with a flexible shaft. However, this system often generates a shaft torsional vibration. Traditional methods of treating this problem to adjust the PID controller so that the closed-loop frequency response is slower than that of the vibration mode. On the other hand, one method has already been proposed in which the vibration is suppressed by a disturbance observer. This paper proposes a new approach based on H_∞ control theory. For comparison, a PI control system based on classical control theory also is constructed. The results of several experiments show that compared with the PI control system, the H_∞ control system is effective in suppressing the vibration. Further, the H_∞ controller obtained in the study consists of a PI controller and a series compensator that functions as an active vibration controller.     

Anti‐Sway Crane Control Considering Wind Disturbance and Container Mass

A method for estimating the sway angle using an observer has already been proposed. The state observer estimates the sway angle accurately and must use the detected sway angle value. However, the estimated sway angle has an error owing to rope length error, friction force, and wind. Moreover, the container mass cannot be determined, and therefore the observer parameter is not suitable. We already proposed robust antisway control for overcoming rope length error without adding a new sensor. Further, we designed a friction disturbance observer to cancel out the influence of the friction force. In this paper, we first propose a container mass estimation method when a crane system performs rolling up control. The observer parameter can be selected using the estimated mass value. Second, in crane parallel shift control, we propose a robust antisway control even when there is a wind disturbance. We design a wind disturbance observer and propose a wind disturbance estimator to separate the friction observer output from the wind disturbance observer output. We confirm through experiments that the proposed method can reduce vibration.     

Motion of control of a multijoint robot based on a robust velocity controller

This paper proposes a simple and robust robot motion control method using a robust velocity controller. The robust velocity controller is based on H^∞ control theory, and is called H^∞ velocity controller. The H^∞ velocity controller based motion control method is completely equivalent to the robust acceleration control method using the H^∞ acceleration controller, but it has simpler structure. Therefore, the proposed system can realize a fine robot motion control easily. To confirm the validity of the proposed method, this paper realizes the hybrid control of position and force for a multijoint robot manipulator. Further, the simple realization of hybrid control is proposed considering the attitude of the robot manipulator. This system achieves hybrid control of position and force of the robot manipulator while maintaining a perpendicular attitude to the target environment. The experimental results in this paper show that the proposed system has the desired force and position response to the target environment. © 1997 Scripta Technica, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 118 (4): 58–69, 1997     

Output power leveling of wind turbine generator by pitch angle control using H∞ control

Effective utilization of renewable energies such as wind energy is expected instead of the fossil fuels. Wind energy is not constant and windmill output is proportional to the cube of wind speed, which causes fluctuating power of wind turbine generator (WTG). In order to reduce the fluctuating power of WTG, this paper presents an output power leveling technique of WTG by pitch angle control using H_∞ control, and the control input of WTG linear model is separated from the disturbance. The simulation results using actual detailed model for WTG show the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 162(4): 17–24, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20657     

Gain‐scheduled velocity and force controllers for electrohydraulic servo system

The load variation of the electrohydraulic servo system causes degradation of the control characteristic. This is because the flow characteristic of the flow control valve depends on the load condition. Here, we propose the flow calculation formula to have continuous flow between turbulent and laminar flow so that we compose the linear plant model with a scheduling parameter. Then, we design gain‐scheduled controllers for the velocity and hydraulic force control. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 146(3): 65–73, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10239     

Decentralized load frequency based on H∞ control

This paper presents a decentralized load frequency control (LFC) based on H_∞ optimal control theory with an observer. A few LFC schemes have been proposed based on the optimal control theory, but they have not considered the change of system parameters in operation and the characteristics of load disturbances in a target system. In this paper, H_∞ robust control is introduced to address such problems. Owing to its practical merit, the proposed control scheme is a decentralized LFC. Employing observer theory, the proposed method requires only frequency and tie‐line power deviation in each area. Numerical simulations are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. H_∞ control was proven to show greater effectiveness of damping disturbance over the conventional optimal control by the design of control systems aimed at restricting the H_∞ norm of its transfer function. In particular, when a decentralized LFC is applied, by reducing the system size, H_∞ norm is easier to dampen; thus H_∞ control is more effective in the decentralized control. Future research topics include the design of H_∞ control system with a weight on frequency response. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 136(3): 28–38, 2001     

Decentralized exciter stabilizing control for multimachine power systems

In this paper, a systematic approach to design controllers based on H‐infinity theory for a multimachine power system is presented. Generally, a centralized control scheme is difficult for a large‐scale interconnected power system because of the necessity of obtaining information on the whole system, computation times, and so on. In order to handle these problems, two decentralized control schemes are proposed. One is based on the decomposition of information. The feedback gains for the whole system are obtained, and after decomposing the gains into subblocks for each area, the diagonal block is used to design the controller for each generator. The other is based on area decompositions. The procedure is carried out by decomposing the original system into blocks for each area and the local feedback gain is obtained by using information for each decomposed system. Furthermore, to improve the robustness of the system, an effective weighting matrix design, which involves the allocation of eigenvalues, is also proposed. Several simulation tests show the effectiveness of the proposed methods. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 139(1): 35–43, 2002; DOI 10.1002/eej.1144     

Switching of H∞ controller under constraints and decision of controller state at instance of the controller switching

In real control systems, certain constraints are placed on the input, state, and output values. If such constraints are violated, the system may become unstable, in a worst‐case scenario. One of the promising approaches to solving this problem is to switch the controller according to the state of the closed‐loop system. No useful design strategy for each controller, however, has yet been developed. In addition, the determination of the controller state at the instant of controller switching has not been investigated. First, this paper presents a new design methodology which merges the switching control and H_∞ controller design into one design algorithm. Second, this paper presents a way of determining the controller state at the instant of controller switching. Finally, the proposed method is applied to force control of a one‐DOF manipulator in order to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 142(2): 68–75, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10082     

Design and implementation of anti-windup controller based on stated feedback H∞ control theory

In the control of an actual plant, there commonly exists a constraint on the control input caused by mechanical constraint on the actuator or in order to protect the plant. This constraint usually exerts an adverse effect on control performance, called windup phenomenon. Anti-windup technique is known as one of the most effective techniques to prevent such windup phenomenon. In this paper, we propose a new design of anti-windup controller based on state feedback H^∞ control theory. This design consists of representation of an anti-windup controller that includes a free parameter, and decision of the free parameter by using state feedback H^∞ control theory. We also discuss the problem on discretization of an anti-windup controller in implementation. In a numerical case study, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed anti-windup controller by computer simulation. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 124(1): 33–41, 1998     

An H∞ approach to linear iterative learning control design

A new design methodology for iterative learning control systems is developed. It is based on the convergence condition for systems operating on an infinite time interval which is of the H_∞ type. The principal idea of the design technique is to design a learning controller such that the speed of convergence is maximized, with a compromise to robustness. The issue of finite versus infinite trial lengths is addressed, as well as limitations on the best achievable rate of convergence due to structural properties of the plant.     

Robust design of vibration suppression control system for crane using sway angle observer considering friction disturbance

It is desirable for a container crane to operate smoothly and quickly. For this purpose, the control system of a container crane should be capable of antisway control for suppressing vibrations. A vision sensor system is often used to detect the sway angle. However, since a control system with a vision sensor has a delay time when determining the angle, it sometimes leads to deterioration of control performance owing to the delay time. In order to overcome this problem, this paper proposes a new antisway crane control system based on a dual‐state observer with sensor‐delay correction. However, because of nonlinear friction in the crane, the estimation accuracy achieved by using the observer is poor. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a disturbance observer considering friction disturbance. The control performance and e?ectiveness of the proposed robust control system based on the estimated information are shown to be satisfactory by experimental results. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 184(3): 36–46, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.22412