Proceedings of the 2nd IFAC

Workshop on Fractional Differentiation and its Applications

Porto, Portugal, July 19-21, 2006

VARIABLE - FRACTIONAL ORDER DEAD-BEAT CONTROL

OF AN ELECTOMAGNETIC SERVO - PART I

Tomasz Rybicki, Piotr Ostalczyk

Institute of Automatic Control, Technical University of Lodz,

d, ul. Stefanowskiego18/22, Poland

Abstract: In this paper a simple dead-beat control of an electromagnetic servo is

proposed. An electromagnetic servo is identified as a third-order linear continuous-time
plant. A method of a dead-beat control of its discrete equivalence is proposed. In a control
algorithm a non-integer variable-order backward difference is used. Copyright 2006
IFAC

Keywords: Difference equations, discrete-time systems, dead-beat control,

electromagnetic servo.

1. INTRODUCTION building a precise model of the electromagnetic servo

The area of practical applications for Fractional
Calculus (Miller and Ross, 1993; Oldham and
Spanier, 1974; Podlubny, 1999) grows wider and
wider. It expands from identification and modelling
of different physical plants and phenomena (Bologna
and Grigolini, 2003; Sjberg and Kari, 2003; Reyes-
Melo, et al., 2004) to fractional order control and
controllers (Ferreira and Machado, 2003; Oustaloup,
1991, 1994, 1995; Suarez, et al., 2003)
The paper presents another application and practical
implementation of Fractional Order Controller in
industrial knitting machine. The idea of the paper
combines well-known theory of dead-beat controllers
and fractional calculus to make a variable-fractional-
order dead-beat servo controller. From one hand the
proposed controller advances from dead-beat control
in fast and settling time predictable responses of the
system (strm and Wittenmark 1984). From the
other the fractional order control strategy ensures the
step response maximal overshot and damping factor
due to the parameter changes of the system
(Oustaloup, 1991, 1994, 1995).
As it will be shown the two aspects presented above
are essential in control of an electromagnetic servo
used in circular knitting machine.
The whole paper consists of two parts. Part one
reveals the requirements for the system that come
from the industrial application. In concentrates on
used in knitting machine and presents the practical
aspects of the electromagnetic servo fractional-order
deadbeat control circuit built for the experiments.
Part two covers the theoretical bases of the variable-
fractional-order deadbeat control strategy as well as
the comparison between simulation and practical
results of the closed loop system with such a
controller.
2. AN ELECTROMAGNETIC SERVO
In general, the technological cycle of forming the
stitch using knitting machines requires the
appropriate sequence of raising and lowering the
needles. These operations are realised by a finite
number of steel sections powered up by
electromagnetic servos. The group of steel sections
creates a lock of the knitting machine which is shown
in Fig.1 (Kornobis, 1997). It consists of several
different steel sections for different purposes:
Lower raising steel sections 1, 2,
Upper raising steel sections 4, 5,
Lowering steel sections 6, 7, 8,
Helping steel sections 3, 9 and 10.
Fig. 1. The classical lock of weft knitting machine.

As it can be seen in Fig. 1 the edges of steel sections

form the passage which leads the needles knee.
Lower raising steel sections (1, 2) raise the needles to
the stitch gathering position and upper (4, 5) until
the maximal position. Lowering steel sections (6, 7,
8) move the needles in two reverse stages: from the
maximal position to stitch gathering position and
finally to initial position.
The process of switching on and off the appropriate Fig. 3. The arrangement of servos in circular knitting
steel section is made by its fast, linear movement machine top view.
towards and from the knitting machine cylinder,
respectively. This movement is caused by the 2.1 An electromagnetic servo continuous-time
specialised electromechanical devices called mathematical model
electromagnetic servos. Fig. 2 shows the
electromagnetic servo used in circular knitting The description of the electromagnetic servo
machine. presented in section 2 reveals two main groups of
physical phenomena taking place during its motion:
electrical phenomena and mechanical phenomena.
The description of electrical phenomena could be
made using Kirchhoffs law in the form:

di (t ) dx(t )
u (t ) = L + Ri (t ) + e(t ) + B (1)
dt dt

where:

dx(t )
e(t ) = Ce (2)
dt

Fig. 2. The electromagnetic servo and:

u (t ) - external supply voltage causing the movement
The electromagnetic servo shown in Fig. 2 consists of the coil, i(t ) - coils current, x(t ) - displacement
of the stator, firmly screwed down to the knitting of the moving part, L - inductance, B - induction,
machine body and of the movable part which is able e(t ) - electromotive force.
to make the reciprocating motion. At the end of the
movable part the steel section which enables the
The movement of the movable part can be described
raising (lowering) of the needles is situated. The
using the mechanical phenomena Newtons law:
electromagnetic servo consists of the strong magnet
connected to the stator and an induction coil
connected to the movable part. Magnetic fields of the d 2 x(t ) dx
magnet and solenoid coil react together creating the
m 2
= k + Bi(t ) (3)
dt dt
driving force. This force moves the steel section
towards and from the knitting machine cylinder
where: m - mass of the movable part, k - damping
depending on the current flow direction. The
factor resulting from air flow resistance.
movable part of the servo is equipped with the small
When creating the model of electromagnetic servo
additional core which is the part of the linear variable
based upon equations (1), (2) and (3) several
differential transformer (LVDT). The LVDT enables
simplified assumptions were made (Dbowski, et al.,
accurate position measurement of the movable part.
2004):
Typical circular knitting machine is equipped with
- constancy of resistance and inductance (position
several electromagnetic servos (between 3 and 6).
and temperature independence),
Fig. 3 shows the arrangement of 4 servos in the
- constancy of damping factor k and induction.
circular knitting machine.
Making several elementary conversions using
equations (1), (2) and (3) leads to the transfer
function in s-domain which shows the linear 0.5
displacement of the movable part as a function of 0.45
external supply voltage:
0.4

X (s )
0.35

displacem ent [V]

1
G p (s ) = =
(
U (s ) s a3 s + a2 s + a1 ) (4) 0.3
2
0.25

0.2

where: 0.15

0.1

Lm kL + Rm
a3 = , a2 = ,
0.05

B B 0
(5) 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

kR
a1 = + B + Ce
B
To identify parameters a 3 , a 2 , a1 in equation (4) the
least square method was used (Masowski, 1993). It
was helpful in finding the best step response of the
model (4) compared with the step response of the
electromagnetic servo acquired experimentally.
Fig. 4. shows the results of the step response
acquired experimentally. To perform this experiment
the electromagnetic servo was powered with 10V DC
tim e [s]
Fig. 5. Step response of the electromagnetic servo
model.
To compare the two step responses (Fig.4 and Fig.5)
the error signal was evaluated. It was defined as the
difference of the step response of real servo
presented in Fig.4 and step response of its model
presented in Fig.5.
0.015

power supply and position signal (CH1) and current

signal (CH2) were measured. A digital channel 0.01

called START marks the duration of the experiment.

It can be seen that at the end of the experiment the
step response error [V]

0.005

position signal suddenly stops and the current signal

raises which marks the servos movable part has 0

reached the end of its range.

Fig. 5. shows the step response of the model (4) -0.005
which was obtained for the following values of the
parameters: -0.01

a 3 = 2.146316799214005 x 10 -6 -0.015
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

a 2 = 7.285585546532878 x 10 -5 (6) time [s]

Fig.6. The difference of the step responses presented
a1 = 4.651158465393928 x 10 -2 in Fig.4. and Fig.5.

Fig. 6 shows that the fitting process of the model is

very accurate and that the real difference oscillates
very close to zero.

2.2 An electromagnetic servo discrete-time

mathematical model

To enable the design of a variable non-integer order

deadbeat controller for the electromagnetic servo the
discretized state-space model is required. Firstly, the
conversion to the analog state-space model was
performed using Matlab environment. As a result the
model in form (7) was obtained:

Fig.4. Step responses of the electromagnetic servo x' (t ) = Ax(t ) + Bv(t )

acquired experimentally. (7)
y (t ) = Cx(t ) + Dv(t )

where the four matrixes are:

 33,945 169,3 0 1 a2 a1 a0 L 0 0 0 0
0 1
L 0
A = 128 0 0 a2 a1
0 0 1 a1 L 0 , 0 0 0
0 16 0 D P, k = I P, k =
0 0 0 1 L 0 a0 0 0
M M M M M a1 a0 0
16
0 0 0 0 0 1 a2 a1 a0
B = 0 (8)
0 0 b2 b1 b0 L 0
0 0 b2 b1 L 0 yk vk
y
C = [0 0 14,219] N P, k
0 0
=
0 b1 L 0 ,
y k = k 1 , v = vk 1
k
M M
0 0 0 0 L 0

D = [0] M M

M M M M

y0 v0
0 0 0 0 0 0
Next, the conversion to discrete time model was
evaluated using sample time Ts = 0.005s . This could where y k , v k denote output and control vectors,
be done by one of the commonly used discretization respectively and y 0 = [ y1 y 2 y 3 ]T is a vector
methods such as ZOH (zero order hold), FOH (first
order hold), Bilinear, Pole-Zero match and Forward of plant initial conditions.
etc. Several experiments were made to obtain the
best analogue model approximation. The most Fig.7 shows the step response of the analogue and
accurate result gives the ZOH discretization method. digital model of electromagnetic servo. Two step
As a result the model in the form (9) was obtained: responses using ZOH and FOH discretization
methods were plotted.
x(k +1) = Ax(k ) + Bv(k )
0.7
(9) ZOH

y (k ) = Cx(k ) + Dv(k )
A NA LOG
0.6 FOH

0.5
where the four matrixes are:
displacem ent [V]

0.4

0,61266 0,71018 0 0.3

A = 0,53693 0,75505 0 0.2

0,02315 0,072356 1
0.1

0,067116 0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

B = 0,02315 (10) tim e [s]

0,0006374 Fig.7. Step responses of analog and digital model

(ZOH, FOH) of the electromagnetic servo.
C = [0 0 145,219]

D = [0] 3.VARIABLE-FRACTIONAL ORDER

DEADBEAT CONTROL REALIZATION
According to (9), the plant is described by a
The control strategy used was based upon the
difference equation:
evaluation of a variable-order (VO) (Coimbra, 2003,
Lorenzo and Hartley 1998, 2002), fractional-order
y k + a 2 y k 1+ a1 y k 2 + a 0 y k 3 = (FO) control strategy realisation. The control was
(11)
= b2 v k 1 + b1v k 2 + b0 v k 3 realised in a closed-loop system presented in Fig. 8.

where: a2 = 2.3677 , a1 = 2.21162 , a0 = 0.8439 ,

b2 = 0.0926 , b1 = 0.34232 , b0 = 0.0821 .

Taking into account all the equations (11) for

k 1, k 2,K,1,0 and collecting together in a matrix-
vector form we get:

DP,k y k + I P,k y 0 = N P,k v k (12)

where:
 dk ek vk yk where k h denotes a sensor coefficient and
VOFO
Plant d k 1
Controller d
1
d k = k 1 =
M M

d 0 1
Sensor is a reference (a discrete step function) signal.

Combining equations (12), (16) and (17) we get the

Fig.8. Block diagram of a closed-loop system with an
input/output description of the closed-loop system:
electromechanical servo and a discrete variable-
order controller
y k = (1k + G O, k )1G O , k d k +
(18)
One assumes that the VOFO controller is described (1k + G O, k )1 DP1,k I P , k y 0
by a simple difference equation (Ostalczyk and
Rybicki, 2006)
where G O , k = D P1,k N P , k D R1,k N R , k , and matrix 1k is
k p 0 (knk )v k = ek (13) (k + 1) (k + 1) unit matrix.

where k p is a constant term, and 0 k k v k denotes a

(n ) Fig.8. can be redrawn as Fig.9 to show all the
different components of the closed loop control
variable-order backward difference (Ostalczyk 2000, system including the effect of sampling and hold
2001) defined below (Choudhury, 2005).
k
( nk )
0 k fk = b(
i =0
i
nk )
f k i (14)

where coefficients bi
(nk ) can be calculated as

bi(nk l ) =

0 for i = 1,2, L
(15)
= 1 for i=0
(nk l ) n k l + 1 Fig.9. Digital control loop block diagram
bi 1 for i = 1,2, L
i (Choudhury, 2005).

In Fig.9. one can name several blocks which are

Equation (13) may be expressed similarly to the plant always present while the control algorithms are
description: realised using microcontrollers or DSPs:
- GC (z ) - denotes the control algorithm
D R, k v k = N R, k e k (16) - ADC represented by an ideal sampler with time
period TS
where - k h proportional element, which denotes the
b0( n k ) b1( n k ) L bk( nk1) bk( n k ) sensor
- Cd - denotes computational delay
0 b0( n k 1 ) L bk( nk21 ) bk( nk11 )
D R, k = M M L M M , - ZOH - denotes the holding device.
( n1 )
As it can be seen in Fig.9. blocks: G p (s ) , k h , Cd ,
0 0 L b0 b1( n1 )
0 b0( n0 )
ZOH and the sampling device together represent the
0 L 0
discrete transfer function G p (z ) of the plant G p (s ) .
1 vk ek
k L 0
p v e
N R, k = M M , v k = k 1 , e k = k 1 4. PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE
1 M M
ELECTROMAGNETIC SERVO CONTROL
0 k p y0 e0

To enable the practical tests of variable non-integer
order dead-beat control the special test bed was
An adder in Fig.8 is described as
created. The simplified schematic diagram of this
equipment which is based on Fig.9 is shown in Fig.
ek = d k khy k (17) 10.

Fig.10. Simplified schematic diagram of the
electromagnetic servo control circuit.
It can be seen in Fig. 10 that the test bed consists of
the electromagnetic servo, fully described in sections
1 and 2, power stage and two sensor sub circuits.
Power stage was built using four DMOS transistors
in H bridge circuit which enables forward and
backward movement of the steel section. The
switching of the transistors is controlled using the
pulse width modulation (PWM) by the supervisory
microcontroller SAB517. The PWM module acts
as a hold device as presented in Fig.9. The variable
non-integer order dead-beat control algorithm was
implemented using C language. The sensor sub
circuits enable the continuous measurement of a
linear displacement of movable part and the current
of its coil. The displacement signal was used as the
feedback signal in the closed-loop control circuit.
The theoretical considerations of variable fractional
order deadbeat control as well as the practical results
using described closed loop automatic control system
with electromagnetic servo are presented in the
second part of this article.
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