Control of a positioning system with structural flexibility using piezoelectric transducers

This paper addresses the control problem for a structurally flexible positioning system by utilizing lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoelectric transducers to act as actuator and sensor elements. It is shown that proper placement of PZT actuators can result in less torque requirements for these actuators. Furthermore, a nonlinear control scheme is developed and augmented with a friction compensation term. Experimental results are presented which illustrate the effectiveness of the control algorithm and improved performance of the controller as compared to the case where no secondary actuation is used.