A Feasible Approach for the Unified PID Position Controller Including Zero-Phase Error Tracking Performance for Direct Drive Rotation Motor

The design and implementation of a high performance PID (Proportional Integral & Differential) style controller with zero-phase error tracking property is considered in this article. Unlike a ball screw driven system, the controller in a direct drive system should provide a high level of tracking performance while avoiding the problems due to the absence of the gear system. The stiff mechanical element in a direct drive system allows high precise positioning capability, but relatively high tracking ability with minimal position error is required. In this work, a feasible position controller named 'Unified PID controller' is presented. It will be shown that the function of the closed position loop can be designed into unity gain system in continuous time domain to provide minimal position error. The focus of this work is in two areas. First, easy gain tunable PID position controller without speed control loop is designed in order to construct feasible high performance drive system. Second, a simple but powerful zero phase error tracking strategy using the pre-designed function of the main control loop is presented for minimal tracking error in all operating conditions. Experimental results with a s-curve based position pattern commonly used in industrial field demonstrate the feasibility and effective performance of the approach.