High-precision position control of a linear-switched reluctance motor using a self-tuning regulator

High-precision position control of linear-switched reluctance motor (LSRM) is important in motion-control industry. The static model-based controller sometimes cannot give satisfactory output performance due to the inherent nonlinearities of LSRM and the uncertainties of the system. In this paper, a self-tuning regulator (STR) based on the pole-placement algorithm is proposed for high-precision position tracking of the LSRM. Following the time-scale characteristics analysis of LSRM position-tracking system and force-characteristic investigation, the position-tracking model is treated as a second-order system. Different from the static model-based control schemes, the dynamic model of the LSRM can be obtained by online estimation. Also, some practical aspects are taken into account. Owing to the unmodeled dynamics and high-frequency measurement noises, there are some oscillations in the practical control signals, and they can be reduced by a properly designed filter. Both the simulation and experimental results demonstrate that, in the control of the proposed STR, the position-tracking system can reproduce the reference signal with the desired performance in harsh ambient. These results confirm that the method is effective and robust in the high-precision position tracking of LSRM.