Implementation of model following control for a pneumatic stage: Improvement of repeatability and positioning speed

In the control of a pneumatic positioning stage, two issues have to be considered. The first issue is the low repeatability caused by variation of parameters in pneumatic system. The second one is the slowness of response due to air compressibility. To overcome these issues, this paper presents the control methods for the pneumatic positioning stage. To compensate for the parameter variation and improve the repeatability, model following control (MFC) is employed. Moreover, to achieve the high-speed positioning, the feedforward (FF) control is utilized. Effectiveness of the MFC and the FF control is shown by experiments.