Use of MEMS accelerometers for load position estimation of ball-screw driven table systems

This paper presents a load position estimation methodology of a ball-screw driven system using a MEMS accelerometer. It is well-known that the load side position information is important to improve positioning performance of the load. However, it is difficult to place position sensors on the load side from the viewpoint of cost saving and available space. In this research, the load acceleration measured by a low cost and small size MEMS accelerometer and the motor angle acquired by a rotary encoder are applied to the Kalman estimator to estimate the position information at the load side. The effectiveness of the proposed estimation system has been verified by experiment using a ball-screw driven system.