Abstract

A robust motion control system is essential for the linear motor (LM)-based direct drive to provide high speed and high-precision performance. This paper studies a systematic control design method using fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode (FNTSM) for an LM positioner. Compared with the conventional nonsingular terminal sliding mode control, the FNTSM control can guarantee a faster convergence rate of the tracking error in the presence of system uncertainties including payload variations, friction, external disturbances, and measurement noises. Moreover, its control input is inherently continuous, which accordingly avoids the undesired control chattering problem. We further discuss the selection criteria of the controller parameters for the LM to deal with the system dynamic constraints and performance tradeoffs. Finally, we present a robust model-free velocity estimator based on the only available position measurements with quantization noises such that the estimated velocity can be used for feedback signal to the FNTSM controller. Experimental results demonstrate the practical implementation of the FNTSM controller and verify its robustness of more accurate tracking and faster disturbance rejection compared with a conventional NTSM controller and a linear H ∞ controller.