A multirate fractional-order repetitive control for laser-based additive manufacturing

This paper discusses fractional-order repetitive control (RC) to advance the quality of periodic energy deposition in laser-based additive manufacturing (AM). It addresses an intrinsic RC limitation when the exogenous signal frequency cannot divide the sampling frequency of the sensor, e.g., in imaging-based control of fast laser-material interaction in AM. Three RC designs are proposed to address such fractional-order repetitive processes. In particular, a new multirate RC provides superior performance gains by generating high-gain control exactly at the fundamental and harmonic frequencies of exogenous signals. Experimentation on a galvo laser scanner in AM validates effectiveness of the designs.