Theory and application of a combined feedback–feedforward control and disturbance observer in linear motor drive wire-EDM machines

This paper presents a combined two-degree-of-freedom controller and disturbance observer design for a direct drive motion control system actuated by permanent-magnet linear synchronous motors (PMLSM). A feedback controller based on pole-placement design method is proposed to achieve desired tracking performance as well as stabilize the closed-loop system. A newly designed feedforward controller is proposed to reduce tracking errors based on an inverse model of the direct drive system. A digital disturbance observer is implemented to be included in the proposed feedback–feedforward control structure to compensate for nonlinear friction, cogging effects, and external load disturbance. Furthermore, the proposed control scheme has been verified as being internally stable. Experimental results indicate that the proposed controller can achieve a high contouring accuracy of ±0.3 μm as well as provide disturbance rejection and robustness. The maximum contour error of circular trajectory was reduced from 8.5 to 3.2 μm in comparison with proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller.