Instrument Comparison for Integrated Tuning and Diagnostics in High Performance Automated Systems

A comparison is discussed among different measuring methods to be used in control and tuning procedures for controllers and for actuating components of high performance automated systems. The system is based on a brushless servomotor and high speed programmable controller. Preliminary indications of the electrical and mechanical behavior of the system, provided by a simple model have been used to get information about the ability to perform the tuning and the monitoring of the system behavior. Measurement systems already present in the system, like encoder and transducers of feeding currents of the electric motor and other high performance added sensors, like accelerometers and fiber optic displacement sensors have been compared for this purpose. In particular, the possibility of using fiber optic displacement sensors has been analyzed, taking into account the improvement of system capability with respect to fault detection and the possibility of performing effective auto-tuning of controller parameters, also in cases of high electrical disturbances. Sensors behavior has been evaluated also taking into account the possibility of using not standard data processing techniques, like wavelet transforms. Experimental results show that interesting information for both a correct and automatic tuning of mechanical parameters and fault diagnostics can be obtained.