Large-scale servo control using a matrix wire network for driving a large number of actuators

Traditionally, a dedicated power amplifier is used for driving each actuator. For a system with a large number of actuator, this one-to-one architecture may be inefficient and costly. This paper presents a new, scalable architecture, called networked actuation architecture, for the power drive and control of large-scale actuation systems. The networked actuation architecture allows sharing of the drive amplifiers among many actuators, and thereby reducing the number of the drive amplifiers and wiring requirements. Since several actuators are sharing a drive amplifier, traditional control algorithms are not applicable. Several new control algorithms for large-scale actuation are presented and compared. Simulation is performed for different types of control algorithm for different types of inputs.