FPGA-based module design for PM linear motor control-applied to music playing robot

In this paper, a motion control module design is considered for multi actuator control system with parallel control capability. And, the control module is implemented to a music playing robot. This robot control system with parallel controlling of two hands and ten fingers is implemented by a hierarchical control structure, i.e. host controller (PC-based) and local controller (FPGA-based), to achieve the anthropomorphic piano robot control. The host controller is in charge of the whole system integration and the music codes encoding of playing music to command the robot via the target controller. The target controller, or called local controller or distributed control module, actually performs the close loop control task of each actuator while it receives the command code. The palms of the robot are driving by a PM linear motor that consists with two movers in a common track stator and they are controlled by the target controller directly. In this paper, we will focus on the FPGA-based controllers design use a practical technique including the velocity and position control loops design for the anthropomorphic piano robot. With some experiments of hard ware in the loop, the control gain can be calculated easily in S-domain and digitizing to Z-domain for FPGA-based controller implementing. The control modules have been applied to control the anthropomorphic piano robot successfully. The results of experiment have given verification about the practical controller design method and the hierarchical control structure.