Papers and Articles

We wrap up our deep dive series on how to diagnose common motion control problems and get your machine back on track!

Many motion applications require high accuracy both during, and at the end of, the move, but even if you are using perfectly optimized PID values to control position, the compensation loop is never perfect. You can improve motor performance by adding motion control elements outside of the PID loop. In this article, we will look at torque control and the related subject of torque FeedFoward, which will make your equipment run smoother, and deliver better accuracy.

With positioning motion control applications, one position feedback device has been king of the hill for a long time - the incremental optical encoder with quadrature output. This article will look at other encoder types and the just-as-important subject of data formats that are used to carry and encode position information.

Everyone who has worked in motion control has a war story, be it the machine that mysteriously stopped working or the motor that wouldn't stop vibrating. Fortunately, common problems often have common solutions.

Before selecting the best motor, or motors, for your design project, take time to understand what kind of positioning controls and functionality you need. In this article, Motoring to Success, we will look at the issues concerning the selection of the right type of motor controller for positioning control applications. The focus will be on understanding how these motors are controlled, and how the choice of the control techniques affects the system cost.

Many motion applications require precise synchronization of one or more axes. Understand some of the important approaches toward motion synchronization and have some fun with a motion synchronization video from the PMD lab.