Design and experimental validation of a DC drive for electromechanical actuator system (EMA)

All the automated control systems contain some sort of Actuators and motors. Mostly Permanent Magnet (PM) motors are used to drive the actuator. The systems having short life span contain brushed DC motors. Various types of controllers can be implemented for a Feedback Control System. Each controller has its own characteristics and constraints and can be selected keeping in view the desired response of the system. However PID is the most popular of all. The objective was to develop a Universal Electronics Drive having the capability to control the position of different types of EMAs containing brushed DC motor, up to 30A current rating. As different plants have different transfer functions, so to achieve the desired response one methodology was to implement an analog controller which was practically not feasible. In addition to the drive hardware design, a Controller Prototyping Facility is also devised so that the different controllers can be implemented for different EMAs. The controller equations are designed using root locus or any other method keeping in view the plant transfer function. The experimental results show that this indigenous drive can be used to control different types of EMAs with ultimate flexibility and precision.