Tuningless servo controller using variable structure control and disturbance compensation

This paper presents a new tuningless control algorithm for a DC servo drive to minimize parameter tuning efforts by an operator. This tuningless algorithm is based on a nonlinear control method, utilizing variable structure control and disturbance compensator. Experiments are performed using a 400 W Tamagawa servo motor and a belt drive load, which is a common combination in automation applications. The performance of the developed method is compared with the conventional servo drive controller, which is manually tuned by an experienced engineer. The experimental results show that the developed tuningless control exhibits excellent performance and is applicable to various load conditions.