Development of a real-time servo control test bench

Servomechanism control problems generally include velocity control, position or tracking control, force control, and multiaxial (synchronous) motion control. This paper presents an innovative real-time system, named “Servomechanism Control Test Bench” (SCTB), designed to provide a benchmark for robust control experiments. The system, including hardware and software, combines a unique experimental apparatus with an easy-to-use software platform based on Matlab, Simulink, and dSPACE. The servomechanism hardware, which is a modular set of motors and drive shafts, can be easily reconfigured to set up a variety of experiments. The software, which consists of a user interface and a real-time control program, provides an opportunity for users to implement control design on-line and verify the performance of the controllers. Using this integrated setup, Servo Control design–evaluate–experiment cycles may be completed on a real-time test rig in only a few minutes.