Mechatronic design and injection speed control of an ultra high-speed plastic injection molding machine

This paper presents pragmatic techniques for mechatronic design and injection speed control of an ultra high-speed plastic injection molding machine. Practical rules are proposed to select specifications of key mechatronic components in the hydraulic servo system, in order to efficiently construct an industry-level machine. With reasonable assumptions, a mathematical model of the injection speed control system is established and open-loop experimental data are then employed to validate the system model. By the model, a gain-scheduling PI controller and a fuzzy PI controller are presented, compared and then implemented into a digital signal processor (DSP) using standard C programming techniques. Experimental results are conducted to show that the two proposed controllers are capable of achieving satisfactory speed tracking performance. These developed techniques may provide useful references for engineers and practitioners attempting to design pragmatic, low-cost but high-performance ultra high-injection speed controllers.