Tracking control of a piezo-actuated stage based on a frictional model

The tracking control accuracy of a piezoelectric actuator (PEA) is limited due to the actuator's inherent hysteretic nonlinearity. Direct drive of PEA on a positioning stage with friction force will cause control problems. An approximated dynamic model of PEA with consideration of friction force is novel synthesized for control. This model is based on a second-order transfer function with two parameterization terms. The first time delay term consists of the hysteresis of piezo effect combined with frictional force lag with varying velocity. The second term is comprised of both presliding and sliding regimes. The H-infinite tracking controller is designed to compensate for the structural uncertainty associated with time delay and the unstructured frictional force in the PEA stage. Iterative Learning Control is implemented to reduce the un-modeled repetitive error by a factor of 20. Numerical simulations and experimental tests consolidate the root mean square (RMS), positioning error close to the hardware reproducibility and accuracy level. Experimental results show the controlled stage can be potentially used for precise positioning.