Control of hybrid nanopositioning systems for trajectory-tracking applications

• Novel control structure for hybrid nanopositioning systems.
• Simultaneous full utilization of both the coarse and the fine actuator.
• Combination of state-feedback and state-feedforward control.
• Experimental validation shows significant improvements compared to classical methods.

In many industrial applications positioning systems are required to follow trajectory paths in the range of several centimeters and featuring at the same time a nanometre-range precision. Neither pure piezoelectric stages nor standard positioning systems with motor and spindle are able to meet such requirements as a single actuator, because of the small operation range on the one hand and inadequacies like backlash and friction on the other hand. Hybrid positioning systems, realized as a combination of a “coarse” and a “fine” actuator, aim to solve this problem. The wide range of applications enables a considerable market potential for such devices, but yields changing control requirements due to the high variety of possible positioned objects and positioning tasks and requires therefore a high-performance control system.In this paper a model-based control design for piezoelectric hybrid nanopositioning systems is presented. The proposed control consists of a multivariable state-feedback control on the basis of a novel plant representation offering a sufficient robustness. The designed control is realized and experimentally tested with a commercially available hybrid nanopositioning system featuring a DC drive, representing the coarse actuator, and a piezoelectric actuator utilized as fine actuator.