A Trapezoidal Velocity Profile Generator for Position Control Using a Feedback Strategy

Position control is usually achieved using a position controller and a profile generator. The profile generator produces a desired position trajectory from a position reference and predefined profiles. The position controller forces the actual position to trace the generated position trajectory. A time-based profile generator is the most famous profile generator due to its capability of generating various profiles. However, time base difference in analysis and implementation causes a steady-state error. In order to remove the steady-state error, this paper proposes a novel profile generator for a trapezoidal velocity profile generation. The proposed generator is based on a cascaded P-PI position controller which is designed to trace the position reference. A dynamic range limiter is adopted to provide the acceleration and velocity restrictions which are basic functions for generating the trapezoidal profile. In spite of these restrictions, it cannot make a desired velocity profile only using the limiter because deceleration point is inaccurate. To adjust the deceleration point, a feedback compensator is designed which requires the velocity of the deceleration point. The velocity of the deceleration point is estimated from the initial position error. The compensator moves the deceleration point to the appropriate point which can generate the desired velocity profile. The proposed profile generator can remove the steady-state error, and the position response can be easily adjusted to be either overdamped or underdamped by selecting the two gains appropriately. Several experimental results are presented to verify the usefulness of the proposed generator.