Adaptive robust precision motion control of linear motors withnegligible electrical dynamics: theory and experiments

This paper studies the high performance robust motion control of an epoxy core linear motor, which has negligible electrical dynamics due to the fast response of the electrical subsystem. A discontinuous projection based adaptive robust controller (ARC) is first constructed. The controller theoretically guarantees a prescribed transient performance and final tracking accuracy in general, while achieving asymptotic tracking in the presence of parametric uncertainties. A desired compensation ARC scheme is then presented, in which the regressor is calculated using the reference trajectory information only. The resulting controller has several implementation advantages such as less online computation time, reduced effect of measurement noise, a separation of robust control design from parameter adaptation, and a faster adaptation rate. Both schemes are implemented and compared on an epoxy core linear motor. Extensive comparative experimental results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness and the achievable control performance of the two ARC designs     

Adaptive robust motion control of single-rod hydraulic actuators:theory and experiments

High-performance robust motion control of single-rod hydraulic actuators with constant unknown inertia load is considered. The two chambers of a single-rod actuator have different areas, so the dynamic equations describing the pressure changes in them cannot be combined into a single load pressure equation. This complicates controller design since it not only increases the system dimension but also brings in the stability issue of the added internal dynamics. A discontinuous projection-based adaptive robust controller (ARC) is constructed. The controller takes into account not only the effect of parameter variations coming from the inertia load and various hydraulic parameters but also the effect of hard-to-model nonlinearities such as uncompensated friction forces and external disturbances. It guarantees a prescribed output tracking transient performance and final tracking accuracy in general while achieving asymptotic output tracking in the presence of parametric uncertainties. In addition, the zero error dynamics for tracking any nonzero constant velocity trajectory is shown to be globally uniformly stable. Experimental results are obtained for the swing motion control of a hydraulic arm and verify the high-performance nature of the proposed strategy. In comparison to a state-of-the-art industrial motion controller, the proposed algorithm achieves more than a magnitude reduction of tracking errors. Furthermore, during the constant velocity portion of the motion, it reduces the tracking errors almost down to the measurement resolution level     

Two-degree-of-freedom control with robust feedback control for harddisk servo systems

A two-degree-of freedom (2 DOF) control structure is proposed for read/write head servo systems of hard disk drives (HDDs). This structure is applied to both track seeking and track following, and makes mode switches found in conventional HDD servo systems unnecessary. Two innovative features introduced in the paper are: 1) a new method for generating the reference signal for track seeking and 2) two robust feedback control schemes for rejection of disturbances; one scheme uses a disturbance observer (DOB), and the other uses adaptive robust control (ARC). Simulation results show that the 2 DOF structure with ARC provides better performance than either the conventional servo system with mode switches or the 2 DOF structure with DOB. Experimental results show the advantage of the new reference generation method and the use of the DOB-based robust controller     

Adaptive robust motion control of linear motors for precision manufacturing

Linear motors offer several advantages over their rotary counterparts in many precision manufacturing applications requiring linear motion; linear motors can achieve a much higher speed and have the potential of gaining a higher load positioning accuracy due to the elimination of mechanical transmission mechanisms. However, these advantages are obtained at the expense of added difficulties in controlling such a system. Specifically, linear motors are more sensitive to disturbances and parameter variations. Furthermore, certain types of linear motors such as the iron core are subject to significant nonlinear effects due to periodic cogging force and force ripple. To address all these issues, the recently proposed adaptive robust control (ARC) strategy is applied and a discontinuous projection-based ARC controller is constructed. In particular, based on the special structures of various periodic nonlinear forces, design models consisting of known basis functions with unknown weights are used to approximate those unknown nonlinear forces. On-line parameter adaptation is then utilized to reduce the effect of various parametric uncertainties such as unknown weights, inertia, and motor parameters while certain robust control laws are used to handle the uncompensated uncertain nonlinearities effectively for high performance. The resulting ARC controller achieves a guaranteed transient performance and a guaranteed final tracking accuracy in the presence of both parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities. In addition, in the presence of parametric uncertainties, the controller achieves asymptotic output tracking. Extensive simulation results are shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Adaptive robust control of fully-constrained cable driven parallel robots

In this paper, adaptive robust control (ARC) of fully-constrained cable driven parallel robots is studied in detail. Since kinematic and dynamic models of the robot are partly structurally unknown in practice, in this paper an adaptive robust sliding mode controller is proposed based on the adaptation of the upper bound of the uncertainties. This approach does not require pre-knowledge of the uncertainties upper bounds and linear regression form of kinematic and dynamic models. Moreover, to ensure that all cables remain in tension, proposed control algorithm benefit the internal force concept in its structure. The proposed controller not only keeps all cables under tension for the whole workspace of the robot, it is chattering-free, computationally simple and it does not require measurement of the end-effector acceleration. The stability of the closed-loop system with proposed control algorithm is analyzed through Lyapunov second method and it is shown that the tracking error will remain uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm is examined through some experiments on a planar cable driven parallel robot and it is shown that the proposed controller is able to provide suitable tracking performance in practice.     

Adaptive robust control of media advance systems for thermal inkjet printers

The inkjet printer offers an attractive feature set that fits well to the consumer’s needs at the low-end color hardcopy market. Better performance at a lower cost is and will always be the driving force for future product development. In this paper, an adaptive robust control is implemented to the media advance system in thermal inkjet printers to achieve designate objectives. Robust control guarantees the transient performance and final tracking error. The parameter adaptation also maintains asymptotic tracking. The experimental results indicate the excellent transient performance and final tracking accuracy.     

Robust adaptive tracking control of uncertain electrostatic micro-actuators with H-infinity performance

A novel adaptive robust tracking control scheme is proposed for a class of single-degree-of-freedom (1DOF) electrostatic micro-actuator systems in the presence of parasitics, parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. This method integrates the adaptive dynamic surface control and H-infinity control techniques. Based on this method, both the design procedure and the derived tracking controller itself are simplified, and the controller guarantees that the output tracking error satisfies the H-infinity tracking performance. In addition, the tracking accuracy can be adjusted by an appropriate choice of the design parameters of the controller. Simulation results show that prescribed transient output tracking performance can be achieved, and the closed-loop system exhibits good robustness to system uncertainties.     

High precision position control of electro-hydrostatic actuators in the presence of parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities

Characterized by high power-to-weight ratio, modularity and energy efficiency, electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs) have been successfully applied to aircrafts and submarines, where high precision and repeatability are in high demand. The position tracking performance, however, can be inevitably affected by parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities. Model inaccuracy or system variations normally require a large loop gain to achieve robust performance, which leads to over-design. Leakage in the fluid power system decreases steady-state accuracy, and friction in the actuator degrades the transient performance or even causes stick-slip motion at low speeds. Furthermore, the system may exhibit limit cycle (or hunting) due to Stribeck friction and integral action. This paper proposes a robust high precision position control strategy incorporating leakage and friction compensation for EHAs. Quantitative feedback theory (QFT) is applied to design a robust controller that satisfies the prescribed performance specifications without over-design, considering model inaccuracy and system variations. The internal leakage is subsequently compensated based on experimental data instead of incorporating an integrator in the controller; hence, limit cycle is avoided, and response speed is improved. Friction in the actuator is identified based on the LuGre friction model and compensated through an observer in the loop. Friction variation and load fluctuation are considered to be output disturbances to be suppressed by the QFT controller. The QFT controller with leakage and friction compensation scheme is verified through experiments on a typical EHA. Both the steady-state and transient position tracking performances are greatly improved.     

Application of robust iterative learning algorithm in motion control system

Robustness issue is considered to be one of the major concerns in application of the iterative learning control in motion control systems. The robustness in servo systems is related to parameter uncertainties and noise accumulation. In this paper, both parameter uncertainties and noise are considered in derivation of the error dynamic equation of the ILC algorithm. Based on the error dynamics, the H_∞ framework is utilized to design the robust learning controller. An optimization design process in selecting the proper learning gain and determining the learning function is proposed to ensure that both tracking performance and convergence condition are achieved. Simulations and experiments are conducted to validate the robust learning algorithm which can be applied efficiently to machine tools with the payload varying from 0 to 20 kg. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves the tracking and contouring performances significantly when performing a complex NURBS curve on a three-axis milling machine.     

Adaptive positioning control for a LPMSM drive based on adapted inverse model and robust disturbance observer

The adaptive robust positioning control for a linear permanent magnet synchronous motor drive based on adapted inverse model and robust disturbance observer is studied in this paper. First, a model following two-degrees-of-freedom controller consisting of a command feedforward controller (FFC) and a feedback controller (FBC) is developed. According to the estimated motor drive dynamic model and the given position tracking response, the inner speed controller is first designed. Then, the transfer function of FFC is found based on the inverse model of inner speed closed-loop and the chosen reference model. The practically unrealizable problem possessed by traditional feedforward control is avoided by the proposed FFC. As to the FBC, it is quantitatively designed using reduced plant model to meet the specified load force regulation control specifications. In dealing with the robust control, a disturbance observer based robust control scheme and a parameter identifier are developed. The key parameters in the robust control scheme are designed considering the effect of system dead-time. The identification mechanism is devised to obtain the parameter uncertainties from the observed disturbance signal. Then by online adapting the parameters set in the FFC according to the identified parameters, the nonideal disturbance observer based robust control can be corrected to yield very close model following position tracking control. Meanwhile, the regulation control performance is also further improved by the robust control. In the proposed identification scheme, the effect of a nonideal differentiator in the accuracy of identification results is taken into account, and the compromise between performance, stability, and control effort limit is also considered in the whole proposed control scheme.     

Multirate adaptive robust control for discrete-time non-minimum phase systems and application to linear motors

It is well known that a plant becomes non-minimum phase in discrete-time domain when the relative degree of the original continuous-time plant is greater than 2 even if the plant is minimum-phase in continuous-time domain. Thus, it was difficult to apply the conventional adaptive controllers directly to these systems. In this paper, multirate adaptive robust control (MARC) is proposed for these systems. This scheme is developed by the good combination of perfect tracking control (PTC) with multirate feedforward control which has been proposed by the first author and discontinuous projection based adaptive robust control (ARC) which has been proposed by the second author. Although the original PTC can assure perfect tracking only for nominal plant, the proposed MARC can guarantee: 1) perfect tracking for plant with parametric uncertainty and 2) overall stability even if there exist modeling error and disturbance. The proposed scheme is applied to the high-speed position control of a linear motor, and the advantages are demonstrated through experiments.     

A Globally Stable High-Performance Adaptive Robust Control Algorithm With Input Saturation for Precision Motion Control of Linear Motor Drive Systems

This paper focuses on the synthesis of nonlinear adaptive robust controller with saturated actuator authority for a linear motor drive system, which is subject to parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities such as input disturbances as well. Global stability with limited control efforts is achieved by breaking down the overall uncertainties to state-linearly-dependent uncertainties (such as viscous friction) and bounded nonlinearities (such as Coulomb friction, cogging force, etc.), and dealing with them via different strategies. Furthermore, a guaranteed transient performance and final tracking accuracy can be obtained by incorporating the well-developed adaptive robust control strategy and effective parameter identifier. Asymptotic output tracking is also achieved in the presence of parametric uncertainties only. Meanwhile, in contrast to the existing saturated control structures that are designed based on a set of transformed coordinates, the proposed saturated controller is carried out in the actual system states, which have clear physical meanings. This makes it much easier and less conservative to select the design parameters to meet the dual objective of achieving global stability with limited control efforts for rare emergency cases and the local high-bandwidth control for high performance under normal running conditions. Real-time experimental results are obtained to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed saturated adaptive robust control strategy     

Experimental evaluation of adaptive and robust schemes for robotmanipulator control

In this paper, adaptive and robust control schemes are compared in the tracking control of robot manipulator. In adaptive control, the authors classify the adaptive control laws that have been proposed into three types. They show that the most important difference among them is that in their PD gains. They investigate their tracking performances by laboratory experiment and show that they can have similar performances by adjusting their equivalent PD gains almost equally. In robust control, two degree of freedom (TDOF) controller is examined. The authors demonstrate its strong disturbance rejection performance and robustness to parameter variation by experiment. They analyze the stability of TDOF controller against the payload change. Finally, through these experiments, they consider the advantages of adaptive and robust schemes for robot manipulator control     

Robust motion controller design for high-accuracy positioningsystems

This paper presents a controller structure for robust high speed and accuracy motion control systems. The overall control system consists of four elements: a friction compensator; a disturbance observer for the velocity loop; a position loop feedback controller; and a feedforward controller acting on the desired output. A parameter estimation technique coupled with friction compensation is used as the first step in the design process. The friction compensator is based on the experimental friction model and it compensates for unmodeled nonlinear friction. Stability of the closed-loop is provided by the feedback controller. The robust feedback controller based on the disturbance observer compensates for external disturbances and plant uncertainties. Precise tracking is achieved by the zero phase error tracking controller. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate performance improvement obtained by each element in the proposed robust control structure     

A simple and robust digital current control technique of a PMsynchronous motor using time delay control approach

A simple and robust digital current control technique of a permanent magnet (PM) synchronous motor using a time delay control approach is presented. Among the various current control schemes for a voltage source inverter-fed PM synchronous motor drive, the predictive control is known to give a superior performance. This control technique, however, requires the full knowledge of machine parameters and operating conditions, and gives an unsatisfactory response under the parameter mismatch between the motor and controller. To overcome such a limitation, the disturbances caused by the parameter variations are estimated by using a time delay control approach and used for the computation of the reference voltages by a simple feedforward control. Thus, the steady-state control performance can be significantly improved in an extremely simple manner, while retaining the good characteristics of the predictive control such as the good transient response and stable inverter operation. The proposed control scheme is implemented on a PM synchronous motor using the software of DSP TMS320C30 and the effectiveness is verified through the comparative simulations and experiments     

A newly robust controller design for the position control ofpermanent-magnet synchronous motor

A robust controller which is designed by employing variable-structure control and linear-quadratic method is presented for a permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) position control system. It is to achieve accurate control performance in the presence of plant parameter variation and load disturbance. In addition, it possesses the design flexibility of the conventional state feedback control. It is applied to the position control of a PMSM. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed approach gives a better position response and is robust to parameter variations and load disturbance     

Adaptive robust pressure control of variable displacement axial piston pumps with a modified reduced-order dynamic model

Variable displacement axial piston pumps (VDAPPs) are wildly used in mobile working machines and they play a key role in machine’s energy-saving load sensing (LS) systems. Typically, electric load sensing (ELS) systems utilize traditional linear control methods, which only can realize limited control flexibility and performance. This study proposes and experimentally verifies an adaptive robust pressure control strategy for a VDAPP system. To facilitate the model-based controller design, a modified reduced-order dynamic modeling of VDAPPs is proposed. Furthermore, an adaptive robust backstepping control strategy is designed to deal with the dynamic nonlinearities and parametric uncertainties of the VDAPP system for achieving accurate pressure tracking. The controller design consists of two steps, processing the pump pressure tracking and the axial angle control, respectively. Comparative experiments and simulations with different working conditions were performed to validate the advantages of the proposed control strategy. The proposed controller achieved higher pressure tracking accuracy and it showed great capability in dealing with dynamic nonlinearities, uncertainties, and time-varying disturbances.     

Observer-based robust controller design and realization of a gantry stage

A precise positioning operation is typically required for gantry systems in applications such as drop-on-demand (DOD) printing processes, precision metrology, and circuit assembly. This work presents experimental results from studies of a disturbance observer (DOB) based variable structure controller (VSC) for a gantry stage. For DOB-based controllers, a nominal model is needed; however, obtaining the nominal model is difficult for systems with friction. A pseudo-random binary signal (PRBS) is utilized to identify the linear nominal model of the gantry stage with friction. To compensate for friction effects, a filtered-VSC is studied to increase robustness and compensate for modeling uncertainties and external disturbances. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust control structure.     

Robust Fuzzy Neural Network Sliding-Mode Control for Two-Axis Motion Control System

A robust fuzzy neural network (RFNN) sliding-mode control based on computed torque control design for a two-axis motion control system is proposed in this paper. The two-axis motion control system is an$x-y$table composed of two permanent-magnet linear synchronous motors. First, a single-axis motion dynamics with the introduction of a lumped uncertainty including cross-coupled interference between the two-axis mechanism is derived. Then, to improve the control performance in reference contours tracking, the RFNN sliding-mode control system is proposed to effectively approximate the equivalent control of the sliding-mode control method. Moreover, the motions at$x$-axis and$y$-axis are controlled separately. Using the proposed control, the motion tracking performance is significantly improved, and robustness to parameter variations, external disturbances, cross-coupled interference, and friction force can be obtained as well. Furthermore, the proposed control algorithms are implemented in a TMS320C32 DSP-based control computer. From the simulated and experimental results due to circle and four leaves reference contours, the dynamic behaviors of the proposed control systems are robust with regard to uncertainties.     

Adaptive robust fast control for induction motors

A new induction motor position controller that exhibits fast response and robustness is proposed. The control strategy is based on the well-known linear quadratic regulator design principle. By adaptively adjusting a penalty parameter, it is shown that the control strategy enables the induction motor system to exhibit fast convergence. Meanwhile, since the sliding mode will occur in the transient process, the fast control inherits the robustness in matched uncertainties of the sliding-mode control. In addition, to alleviate the chattering effect of the switching control signal, a low-pass filter is used to smooth the control and its design is integrated with the switching control design. The performance of the proposed control strategy is verified by experimental results