PID contour tracking control in position domain

Contour error reduction in modern machining processes is an important concern for multi-axis contour tracking applications. Many control methods were developed in time domain to deal with such an issue. It is well known that PID control is the most popular control in applications of control theory. In this paper, a PD position domain control method is extended to form PID position domain control for reducing contour tracking errors further. To find proper control gains, system stability analysis is conducted for the proposed position domain PID control. Several experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach compared with time domain PID control and cross-coupled control. Different control gains are used in simulations to explore the robustness of position domain PID control. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of position domain PID control for contour tracking applications.