Robust μ control and repetitive control for dynamic tracking control of a pneumatic actuating table

This paper presents a robust μ control and repetitive control method for dynamic tracking control of a pneumatic actuating table. The applied hybrid control structure contains two feedback controllers. The first one is a repetitive controller used to improve periodic tracking performance, and the second one is a μ controller used to handle the dominant nonlinearities and uncertainties in pneumatic servo systems. Different from a previously-presented robust repetitive control method that solves the repetitive controller through a μ design process, this study designs the above two controllers independently and takes the advantage of the synergetic effect that results in a more performance-aggressive design alternative. Experimental results on tracking dynamic motion profiles at perturbed operating regions for a heavy duty pneumatic actuating table demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.