Control of a linear motor driven table via minimal control synthesis

Handling devices are required to operate with a wide variety of materials and loads, and their dynamics often leads to incorrect positioning. It is nearly impossible to produce a dynamic model that takes into account all possible combinations of handling device and load in order to design an error-free control system. However, adaptive control methods can be effective in dealing with a plant with unknown dynamics or variable parameters. The Minimal-Control-Synthesis (MCS) method is one such adaptive control method and does not require knowledge of the plant dynamics. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate MCS control of a one-degree-of-freedom table device that is driven by a linear actuator. A comparison is made between the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and MCS control methods for four different configurations. The results show that MCS achieves faster device positioning and reduces the effects of nonlinearity.