Position-sensorless drive of linear pulse motor for suppressing transient vibration

The linear pulse motor (LPM) has been widely used because of its simple structure and easy control without the use of feedback. However degradation of the response performance occurs, resulting from the transient vibration which is inherent in the LPM. The fastest way to suppress the vibration is to close the control loop using the position feedback sensor. However, the straightforward use of such a sensor feedback leads to higher cost and complicated configuration, sacrificing the structural advantage of the LPM. Therefore, the authors propose a Kalman-filter-based sensorless control for suppressing the transient vibration, In this proposed control method, the LPM mover position and speed are optimally estimated using an extended Kalman filter applied to the nonlinear state equations of excitation winding circuits. The effectiveness of this method is confirmed by experiments on a prototype LPM control system using a digital signal processor.