Design of Feed Drives with Object-Oriented Behavior Models

Feed drives are designed with manual calculations, custom spreadsheets or with special sizing software. Manual calculations and spreadsheets are based on simplified calculations and are generally timeconsuming. Software packages for sizing servo systems provide effective means for many standard applications, but also have several limitations: they do not allow application-specific extensions, detailed analysis of control loops dynamics in the time and frequency domain is not possible, and they therefore cannot be used for optimizing the system as a whole. In this paper an alternative approach for sizing servo systems is presented that enables analysis and optimization of the system dynamics. The approach relies on object-orientated behavior models. These models are included in an extensible model library that facilitates quick model development even with limited expert-knowledge in simulation. For supporting the determination of parameters and components the simulation-framework is combined with methods that allow optimization of discrete and continuous parameters.