Servo control apparatus

Abstract

A disturbance suppressing system is incorporated in a servo control apparatus. In the disturbance suppressing system, a component e introduced in an output of a target plant due to a disturbance estimate error is amplified in a disturbance suppressing controller having a frequency characteristic corresponding to a magnitude of a plant error, which is a difference in transfer characteristics between the target plant and the plant model, and the amplified component e is fed back to a control input.

Claims

1. A servo control system comprising: a target plant having a driver which is driven by a drive motor, a velocity detector that detects a velocity of the drive motor as a motor velocity (v); a position detector that detects a position of the drive motor or the driver as a driver position (x); and a position control apparatus that controls a position or a velocity of the target plant according to a position command value (Xc) commanded from a host device, wherein the position control apparatus is configured to: amplify a position deviation signal in which the driver position (x) detected by the position detector is subtracted from the position command value (Xc), to calculate a velocity command value (Vc); amplify a velocity deviation signal in which the motor velocity (v) detected by the velocity detector is subtracted from the velocity command value (Vc), to calculate a motor generated drive force (u.sub.0); subtract a disturbance estimate value (^d) from the motor generated drive force (u.sub.0), to calculate a corrected motor generated drive force (u.sub.c); input the motor generated drive force (u.sub.0) to a plant model equation in which the target plant is approximated by a lower-order model, to calculate a model velocity (vm), subtract the model velocity (vm) from the motor velocity (v), to calculate a disturbance estimate error signal (e); amplify the disturbance estimate error signal (e), to calculate the disturbance estimate value (^d); and output a control signal of the drive motor so that the corrected motor generated drive force (u.sub.c) is generated, wherein an approximation error of the plant model equation with respect to the target plant in middle and low range frequency regions is smaller than an approximation error of the plant model equation with respect to the target plant in a high range frequency region, and a rate of amplification of the disturbance estimate error signal (e) in the middle and low range frequency regions is larger than a rate of amplification of the disturbance estimate error signal (e) in the high range frequency region.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) The present invention will be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like parts in the several views, and wherein:

(2) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a position control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

(3) FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining a method for designing a disturbance suppressing controller according to the present invention;

(4) FIG. 3 is a graph showing an example of frequency characteristics for each block in FIG. 2;

(5) FIG. 4 is a graph showing an example of frequency characteristics of the disturbance suppressing controller according to this invention;

(6) FIG. 5 is a graph showing an example of frequency characteristics of a velocity control unit in the position control apparatus of FIG. 1;

(7) FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a typical servo control apparatus;

(8) FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional position control apparatus to which a disturbance observer method is applied;

(9) FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing in detail an exemplary configuration of a velocity control unit in FIG. 7;

(10) FIG. 9 is a graph showing an example of frequency characteristics of a conventional velocity control unit to which no disturbance observer method is applied;

(11) FIG. 10 is a graph showing an example of frequency characteristics of a conventional velocity control unit to which the disturbance observer method is applied;

(12) FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing an arrangement obtained by equivalently converting a disturbance suppression unit shown in FIG. 8, and

(13) FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional velocity control apparatus.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENT

(14) In the following description, the present invention is described in accordance with an exemplary embodiment with reference to the drawings. In the present invention, a disturbance suppressing system is also formed in a minor loop through which data is fed back to a control input as conventionally achieved. Firstly, a request to form the disturbance suppressing system that does not induce vibrations is replaced, as described above, by a problem of finding a transfer characteristic K0 which allows a feedback amount given to the control input to be reduced in a frequency range where a plant error represented by a difference between transfer characteristics .sup.˜P and P becomes greater. Solving this problem can prevent change in command following performance in a high frequency range due to formation of the disturbance suppressing system. Secondly, an equivalent block shown in FIG. 11 as described above is used to consider the disturbance suppressing performance. A request to increase the disturbance suppressing performance in a middle to low frequency range where the plant error is small is replaced by a problem to find the transfer characteristic K0 which allows a transfer characteristic of d.fwdarw.u to be minimized in the middle to low frequency range in FIG. 11.

(15) FIG. 2 shows a block diagram obtained by incorporating the two problems formulated as a robust control problem into a generalized plant G. In FIG. 2, reference symbol P represents a transfer characteristic of a plant model created by modeling a target plant, and reference symbol K represents a robust controller having a transfer characteristic corresponding to the above-described transfer characteristic K0. The robust controller K is the disturbance suppressing controller of this invention. A process of solving the robust control problem to thereby obtain the disturbance suppressing controller K having the transfer characteristic that satisfies the above-described requests will be described below. It should be noted that M represents a transfer matrix of [w1, w2]T.fwdarw.4 [z1, z2]T, and Mij represents a transfer function for elements of i rows and j columns.

(16) When the plant error is represented as a multiplication variable, a weighted transfer function Wm in FIG. 2 is of a stable minimum phase system including a magnitude of the plant error represented as the multiplication variable on the frequency characteristics, and determined so as to satisfy a relationship expressed by equation (4) as follows.
|Wm|>|1−.sup.˜P/P|  (4)

(17) Here, a transfer characteristic M22 for w2.fwdarw.z2 may be expressed by equation (5) as follows.
M22=−Wm.Math.PK/(1+PK)  (5)

(18) Because Wm is increased in the high range, a task to design a transfer characteristic K which allows equation (5) to be minimized corresponds to the above-described problem of preventing the command following performance from being changed in the high range.

(19) Next, a transfer function M11 for w1.fwdarw.z1 may be expressed by equation (6) as follows.
M11=Wd.Math.1/(1+PK)  (6)

(20) When the weighted transfer function Wd is selected to be of the stable minimum phase system exhibiting an increase in the middle to low range, a task to design the transfer characteristic K which allows equation (6) to be minimized corresponds to the problem of improving the disturbance suppressing performance in the middle to low range.

(21) Because, as has already been described above, the problem in which the above-described two requests are formulated is incorporated in the transfer matrix M, the disturbance suppressing controller K which will be a common solution is obtained by solving the robust control problem. Below-described equation (7) represents the structure of the transfer matrix M including non-diagonal elements.

(22) $\begin{array}{cc}\left[\mathrm{Expression}1\right]& \\ M=\left[\begin{array}{cc}{W}_d\frac{1}{1+\mathrm{PK}}& -W_m\frac{K}{1+\mathrm{PK}}\\ W_d\frac{P}{1+\mathrm{PK}}& -W_m\frac{\mathrm{PK}}{1+\mathrm{PK}}\end{array}\right]& \left(7\right)\end{array}$

(23) In a process of solving the robust control problem, because the non-diagonal elements in equation (7) are not involved in formulation of the requests, it is undesirable that the non-diagonal elements gives a constraint to design of the disturbance suppressing controller K. Accordingly, in this invention the robust control problem is solved with p design, so that the non-diagonal elements are multiplied by a scaling factor to minimize the constraint placed on the design.

(24) Below-described equation (8) shows the structure of the weighted transfer function Wm used in this embodiment and determined so as to cover |1−.sup.˜P/P| on the frequency characteristics.

(25) $\begin{array}{cc}\left[\mathrm{Expression}2\right]& \\ W_m={\left(k\frac{s^2+2{\zeta }_b{\omega }_{b}s+{\omega }_b^2}{s^2+2{\zeta }_a{\omega }_{a}s+{\omega }_a^2}\right)}^2& \left(8\right)\end{array}$

(26) Where Wm is of a high pass type, and +80 dB/sec is selected for a transition characteristic.

(27) Similarly, equation (9) described below shows the structure of the weighted transfer function Wd determined so as to be increased in the middle to low range.

(28) $\begin{array}{cc}\left[\mathrm{Expression}3\right]& \\ W_d=\frac{s^2+2{\zeta }_f{\omega }_{f}s+{\omega }_f^2}{s^2+2{\zeta }_e{\omega }_{e}s+{\omega }_e^2}& \left(9\right)\end{array}$

(29) Where Wd is of a low pass type, and −40 dB/dec is selected for the transition characteristic.

(30) FIG. 3 shows frequency-gain characteristics of the above-described transfer characteristics .sup.˜P and P, |1−.sup.˜P/P|, and the transfer functions Wm and Wd obtained using parameters (k, ζa, ζb, ζe, ζf, ωa, ωb, ωe, ωf) determined through a trial and error process for the target plant 55 having the transfer characteristic .sup.˜P expressed by equation (1) (where I1=0.2 [kgm2], I2=0.4 [kgm2], ζ=0.005, ωp=628 [rad/s], and ωz=364 [rad/s]) which is used for explaining the background art. It should be noted that the transfer characteristic P of the plant model is also determined by setting the lower order model having the transfer characteristic of equation (2) used for explaining the background art.

(31) The frequency characteristic of the disturbance suppressing controller K designed under the above-described condition is shown in FIG. 4. Because, in the transfer characteristic M11 defined by equation (6), −40 dB/dec is selected for the transition characteristic of the weighted transfer function Wd in the middle to low range, H.sup.∞ norm of the transfer characteristic M11 is reduced when the disturbance suppressing controller K has the transition characteristic of −20 dB/dec in the middle to low range. On the other hand, in the transfer characteristic M22 defined by equation (5), +80 dB/dec is selected for the transition characteristic of the weighted transfer function Wm associated with a region close to the transfer zero ωz of the target plant, and H.sup.∞ norm of the transfer characteristic M22 is reduced when the disturbance suppressing controller K has a steep dropping characteristic in that region.

(32) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a position control apparatus which is the servo control apparatus for driving a servo motor 60 of target plant 55 in accordance with a position command value or a velocity command value issued from a host device 61 according to the present invention. The target plant 55 includes a position detector 63 and a velocity detector 64, and further includes a driver 62 driven by the servo motor 60. Components different from those in the above-described conventional position control apparatus are explained below. The position control apparatus 11 is internally equipped with a velocity control unit 10 constituting the disturbance suppressing system in which the disturbance suppressing controller K (indicated by reference numeral 1) of this invention is included in the minor loop. The plant model 2 has the transfer function P modeled with respect for the target plant, receives as an input the drive force command value u0, and outputs a model velocity vm. A subtractor 3 subtracts the model velocity vm from the motor velocity v, and outputs a subtracted result which is the above-described disturbance estimate error signal e. Therefore, the subtractor 3 functions as the disturbance estimate error calculator for calculating the disturbance estimate error signal. The disturbance estimate error signal e is an input to the disturbance suppressing controller K from which the disturbance estimate value ^d according to this invention is output. The output disturbance estimate value ^d is subtracted from the drive force command value u0 in a subtractor 4 and passed as the motor generated drive force uc.

(33) Here, the disturbance estimate error signal e is expressed by equation (10) as follows.
[Expression 4]
e={tilde over (P)}{u.sub.o+(d−{circumflex over (d)})}Pu.sub.o={tilde over (P)}(d−{circumflex over (d)})+({tilde over (P)}−P)u.sub.o  (10)

(34) From definition of a disturbance estimate error (d−^d), it is found that the disturbance estimate error signal e includes a disturbance estimate error with a high degree of accuracy in the middle to low range where the plant error is small, but includes the disturbance estimate error, which is not obtained with a high degree of accuracy, in the high range where the plant error is great. Accordingly, the disturbance suppressing system of this invention has a control structure in which the feedback amount given to the control input is increased as the degree of accuracy in detection of the disturbance estimate error becomes higher.

(35) Then, the transfer characteristic of u0, d.fwdarw.u in the disturbance suppressing system is expressed by equation (11) as follows.

(36) $\begin{array}{cc}\left[\mathrm{Expression}5\right]& \\ u=\frac{1+\mathrm{PK}}{1+\tilde{P}K}{u}_o+\frac{1}{1+\tilde{P}K}d& \left(11\right)\end{array}$

(37) Because the disturbance suppressing controller K is an amplifier that performs amplification using a higher amplification rate in the middle to low range where the plant error is smaller and using a lower amplification rate in the high range where the plant error is great, a superior disturbance suppressing effect is obtained in the middle to low range, so that the influence exerted by the disturbance d onto the control input u is accordingly mitigated. From equation (11), it is confirmed that because the control input u is obtained as u≈u0 when d=0 in the entire range, the command following system is not affected by the disturbance suppressing system.

(38) FIG. 5 shows frequency characteristics (Vc, d.fwdarw.v, v2) of the velocity control unit 10 shown in FIG. 1. Here, the velocity deviation amplifier Gv is defined to have the same characteristics as those used for obtaining the frequency characteristics shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 described above. The frequency characteristics (Vc.fwdarw.v, v2) indicative of the command following performance of FIG. 5 are similar to those conventionally obtained as shown in FIG. 9 under the condition that the disturbance observer method is not employed. That is, unlike conventional characteristics shown in FIG. 10 and obtained using the disturbance observer method, the command following performance in FIG. 5 causes no vibrations resulting from an increased gain. Meanwhile, the frequency characteristics (d.fwdarw.v, v2) indicative of the disturbance suppressing performance are understood as described below. The frequency characteristic (d.fwdarw.v) in the middle to low range can be expressed by equation (12) as follows.

(39) $\begin{array}{cc}\left[\mathrm{Expression}6\right]& \\ v=\frac{\tilde{P}}{\left(1+\tilde{P}K\right)+\mathrm{Gv}\tilde{P}\left(1+\mathrm{PK}\right)}d\approx \frac{1}{\mathrm{GvPK}}d& \left(12\right)\end{array}$

(40) Because the disturbance suppressing controller K has the transition characteristic of −20 dB/dec in the middle to low range, the transition characteristics of the frequency characteristics (d.fwdarw.v, v2) in the middle to low range become steeper than those of conventional characteristics in FIG. 10 obtained using the disturbance observer method. From equation (12) and the steeper transition characteristic, the disturbance suppressing performance is proved to be improved. Further, in the middle to low range in which v≈v2, the frequency characteristic (d.fwdarw.v2) is substantially identical with the frequency characteristic (d.fwdarw.v).

(41) As has been described above, the servo control apparatus according to the present invention has the structure including the disturbance suppressing system capable of solely enhancing the disturbance suppressing performance in the middle to low range without having any influence on the command following performance in the entire frequency domain. Because the structure can prevent any change in the frequency characteristics from occurring in the high range due to inclusion of the disturbance suppressing system, it is possible to separately design the command following performance and the disturbance suppressing performance without impairing stabilities of the velocity control system and the position control system.