Reduction of Quadrant Glitch: An Experimental

Validation on XY Positioning Table

Elif Cicek Türker Türker Onur Akbati
ALTINAY Robot Technologies Inc. Dept. of Electromechanical Eng. and Tech. Dept. of Control and Automation Eng.
Istanbul Industry and Trade Free Zone Abu Dhabi Polytechnic Yildiz Technical University
2023 Advances in Science and Engineering Technology International Conferences (ASET) | 978-1-6654-5474-2/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ASET56582.2023.10180744

Istanbul, Turkey Abu Dhabi, UAE Istanbul, Turkey

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Kamil Vedat Sancak

ALTINAY Robot Technologies Inc.
Istanbul Industry and Trade Free Zone
Istanbul, Turkey
[email protected]

Abstract—The glitch effect phenomenon is one of the important employing a proposed friction model. An effective control
control problems for ball screw driven industrial systems. There method in dynamical systems involving periodicity is the
are various practical methods proposed in the literature to com- learning controller which is implemented in [4] in order to
pensate for quadrant glitches e.g. model and friction identifica-
tion, linear/nonlinear control algorithms combined with observer reduce the error occurring due to the friction in a ball screw-
or filter structures. This study aims to present experimentally driven stage. In addition to the controller schemes, including
the effects of observer-based control structures on quadrant the relevant terms in the closed-loop system helps to reduce
errors in ball screw mechanisms. To this end, combinations of the negative effects of friction. The importance of the feed-
various controller and velocity/disturbance observer algorithms forward terms in friction compensation is emphasized in [5],
are applied to a ball screw driven XY positioning table for a
circular motion and experimental results are presented. and the improvement in glitches is shown experimentally when
Keywords—Quadrant glitch, observer-based control, ball screw a friction feed-forward controller is employed. Besides, a
mechanism, XY positioning table feed-forward PID controller with the combination of different
friction models is applied to reduce the radial error in [6].
I. I NTRODUCTION The effect of friction should be considered for all the phases
Ball screw feed-drive systems are utilized to transform rota- of the motion consisting of different velocity reference signals
tional motion to translational motion and are mainly preferred for the axes. In order to count in that effect, a combination
for their high accuracy and efficiency. High precision position of two friction models is proposed in [7]. Then the proposed
and tracking control in ball screw mechanisms are achievable model is utilized in a feed-forward structure to reduce the
with the implementation of advanced control techniques which contour error. In a similar fashion, two different friction
make those mechanisms desirable in a broad range of applica- compensation models are used with a cascade P/PI controller
tion areas in industrial manufacturing. One of the significant to reduce the quadrant glitch in [8]. Apart from the standard
factors acting on the control performance and leading to extra P/PI cascade structure, nonlinear controllers are also cascaded
error in position and velocity tracking in ball screw systems possibly with linear controllers to test their achievement in
is friction. Due to this nonlinear effect, the precision of the suppressing the adverse effect of the friction. In one such
motion is highly influenced during the tracking of a circular study, a sliding mode controller and two different types of
trajectory especially when the velocity is near zero or its adaptive controllers are implemented in a cascade form with
direction is changed. This phenomenon, so-called the quadrant a proportional controller, and the responses of those structures
glitch, has been studied in the literature extensively in order are compared in [9].
to reduce radial error, and a variety of control schemes have Disturbance observers are also employed in compensation
been developed and implemented accordingly [1]. of unknown dynamics existing in the practical systems in
In order to reduce the adverse effects of the unknown non- order to reduce the quadrant glitches. In that manner, an
linear friction terms existing in the dynamics of the ball screw improved disturbance observer is adapted to a feed drive
drive systems, various controller and observer schemes have system for quadrant glitch compensation and inverse response
been proposed. A comparative study of PID, gain scheduling cancellation [10]. Such a disturbance observer can also be used
and cascade P/PI controllers is presented in [2] considering with advanced controllers to improve performance. In [11], a
the cutting forces as a disturbance. Cascade P/PI controller modified disturbance observer is combined with a repetitive
is also implemented in [3] with a friction compensator which controller to reduce quadrant glitches.
is canceling the friction existing in a ball screw mechanism A comprehensive comparison of various controller and

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - YILDIZ TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on February 20,2024 at 10:44:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 disturbance observer schemes and their combinations applied Omitting the disturbance and setting the control signal
to a ball screw driven XY positioning table is presented in
this paper. Firstly, a traditional PID controller is implemented τ = J ẋ2d + Bx2 + ki e0 + kp e1 + kd e2 (10)
to track the predefined trajectories for all three motors in the where kp , kd and ki are proportional, derivative and integral
ball screw system. Angular velocity information used by the gains, the closed-loop dynamics takes the form of
controller is obtained by means of filtered derivative signals
in that first application. Then, considering the availability ė0 = e1 (11)
of only the position and/or velocity information, standard ė1 = e2 (12)
Luenberger and sliding mode observers are added to the ė2 = −ki e0 − kp e1 − kd e2 . (13)
feedback loop to observe the angular velocity and/or external
disturbances for the PID controller. Finally, a sliding mode Note that, selecting the controller gains the response of the
controller along with a sliding mode observer is applied to closed-loop system can be designed.
the system. Satisfactory responses are obtained as results of
B. Sliding mode controller (SMC)
the experiments and the advantages and disadvantages of the
applied controller and observer structures are discussed briefly The following part of the error dynamics introduced in (11)-
in the results section. (15) is utilized to derive SMC:

II. S YSTEM MODEL AND CONTROLLER STRUCTURES ė1 = e2 (14)

1
The state equations for a general second-order mechanical ė2 = ẋ2d −
(−Bx2 + τ − d) . (15)
system model with disturbance can be given by J
The sliding surface is defined by
ẋ1 = x2 (1)
1 s = λc e1 + e2 (16)
ẋ2 = (−Bx2 + τ − d) (2)
J where λc is a positive constant. And the SMC can be derived
where x1 and x2 are the states defined as position and accordingly as
velocity respectively, J is inertia, B is friction coefficient, τ = −k sgn(s) (17)
d is disturbance parameter and τ is input torque which is
the control input in this model. Note that the disturbance where k is a sufficiently large controller gain and sgn(·) is the
is considered unknown throughout this study and hence the standard signum function. The stability analysis of the SMC
model is not linearizable via feedback. In addition to the state introduced here can be found in [12].
equations, the output is defined as the position, in other words One of the drawbacks of the sliding mode controller is the
chattering occurring due to the fast switching characteristics
y = x1 (3) of the controller. In order to avoid that, the saturation function
is utilized instead of the signum function [12]. Therefore, the
is valid. final structure of the controller is given by
Various controller and observer structures are applied in this s
study to control a ball-screw system, and these structures are τ = −k sat (18)
introduced in the remaining part of this section. ε
where ε is a constant used for adjusting the slope of the
A. Classical PID controller saturation function.
In order to apply a classical PID controller, the position
C. Luenberger observer
error, its integral, and its derivative are defined as
Only the position information of the axes is available in
e1 = x1d − x1 , (4) the ball-screw mechanism considered in this study, and it is
Z t used to derive the velocity information that is required for
e0 = e1 dt, (5) the control signal. One of the schemes which is widely em-
0 ployed to determine the velocity and disturbance information
e2 = ė1 = x2d − x2 . (6) is the Luenberger observer. In order to formulate the observer
dynamics, the system model given by (1)-(3) is utilized.
Here, x1d and x2d denote the time-varying desired trajectory Considering that the disturbance signal is not changing by
and its time derivative, respectively. Considering (1)-(2) in (4)- time or its derivative is negligible, observer dynamics can be
(6), error dynamics can be constructed as introduced by (see [13] for details)
ė0 = e1 x̂˙ 1
  
(7) 0 1 0
   
x̂1 0

Lx1

ė1 = e2 x̂˙  
(8)  2 = 0 − B J − J1  x̂2  +  J1  u + Lx2  (y − ŷ)
1 ˙ dˆ
ė2 = ẋ2d − (−Bx2 + τ − d) . (9) dˆ 0 0 0 0 Lx3
J (19)

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - YILDIZ TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on February 20,2024 at 10:44:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 where ˆ· denotes the observed state, and Lx1 , Lx2 and Lx3 are
observer gains. Defining the observer error vector
     
x̃1 x1 x̂1
x̃2  = x2  − x̂2  , (20)
d˜ d dˆ
one can determine the observer error dynamics as
x̃˙ 1
    
Lx1 1 0 x̃1
x̃˙  
 2  = Lx2 − B J − 1  x̃ 
J 2 . (21)
˜˙ L 0 0 d˜
d x3

It can be shown that the observer error vector converges to

zero exponentially by an appropriate selection of the observer
Fig. 1. Experimental setup
gains to have the real parts of the eigenvalues of the system
matrix negative.
D. Sliding mode observer III. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
The sliding mode observer (SMO) presented and applied in The aforementioned controller and observer structures have
this paper is based on the SMO structure introduced in [14]. been applied to the XY positioning table given in Figure 1.
Note that, the velocity information is assumed to be available Those structures are classical PID, Luenberger observer-based
in the design of the SMO, and SMO is used for observing the PID (PID+LO), sliding mode observer based PID (PID+SMO)
unknown disturbance. Similar to the procedure stated for the and sliding mode observer based sliding mode controller
Luenberger observer, consider the system dynamics given in (SMC+SMO). The system consists of an IPC (Beckhoff),
(2)-(3). Let the observer dynamics be introduced by three AC servo motors (Beckhoff, AM8033-1E21) with servo

B 1 1
 drivers (Beckhoff, AX8206), and the specifications of XY
x̂˙ 2 = − x̂2 + τ − dˆ + η(x̂2 ) (22) Positioning table with ball-screw mechanism are given in
J J J
˙ Table I.
dˆ = lη(x̂2 ) (23)
where l is a gain, and η(x̂2 ) is a function to be assigned later Desired clockwise circular path, presented in Figure 2,
on. Defining the observer errors as has been created with an S-Curve based trajectory generator
and axis trajectories have been obtained by using inverse
x̃2 = x2 − x̂2 (24) kinematic relations of the table. The experiments have been
d˜ = d − d,
ˆ (25) conducted at path velocity, acceleration and jerk at 90mm/s,
100mm/s2 and 170mm/s3, respectively. Reference position,
observer error dynamics is obtained as velocity and acceleration trajectories for X (Motor 1 & Motor
B 1 3) and Y (Motor 2) axes are given in Figure 3.
x̃˙ 2 = − x̃2 − d˜ − η(x̂2 ) (26)
J J
˙ The inertia and viscous friction coefficients, used as feed-
d˜ = lη(x̂2 ). (27)
forward control gains, have been estimated by the recursive
A relevant sliding mode surface can be introduced by least square algorithm as J = 5.56 × 10−4 kgm2 , B =
Z t 5.62 × 10−4 N ms/rad, respectively and PID controller gains
s = x̃2 + λ x̃2 dτ (28)
0

with λ being a positive constant. Considering − J1 d˜ in (26) as TABLE I

S YSTEM PARAMETERS
the disturbance, η(x̂2 ) function can be defined as
  Ball Screw Parameters
B Diameter [mm] 25
η(x̂2 ) = λ − x̂2 + k2 sat(s) + kt2 s (29)
J Lead [mm] 5
Length [mm] 1100
where k2 and kt2 are positive gains. Then the dynamics of the Cart Travel Distance (approx)[mm]  800
sliding surface defined in (28) can be derived, Estimated Moment of Inertia kg.m2 5.25x10−4
Estimated Viscous Friction [N ms/rad] 1x10−4
1˜ Motor Parameters
d.
ṡ = − (k2 sat(s) + kt2 s) − (30)
J Motor Rated Power [W ] 940
Motor Rated Torque [N m] 3.2
Here, it can be shown that the sliding surface and its time Motor Rated Speed [r/min] 3000
derivative tend to zero as well as the observer errors defined Motor Inertia kg.m2
 
1.23x10−4
in (24) and (25) [14].

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - YILDIZ TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on February 20,2024 at 10:44:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 have been taken as Kp = 9.24, Ki = 168 and Kd = 0.147 TABLE II
for all axes. For the observer-based experiments, Luenberger C OMPARISON OF A XIS T RACKING AND C ONTOUR E RRORS
Observer and Sliding Mode Observer gains have been adjusted Control kMax Contour Errork kMax Tracking Errork[mm]
as Techniques [mm] Motor 1 Motor 2 Motor 3
PID 0.0200 0.0200 0.0178 0.0185
Lx1 = {1000, 1000, 1000} PID+LO 0.0069 0.0065 0.0069 0.0069
PID+SMO 0.0071 0.0066 0.0071 0.0080
Lx2 = {455000, 455000, 455000} SMC+SMO 0.0096 0.0096 0.0080 0.0085

Lx3 = {−20550, −20550, −20550}

Reference Trajectory
600
and

λ = {95000, 95000, 95000}

l = {−0.055, −0.025, −0.035} 500

k2 = {0.001, 0.001, 0.001}

kt2 = {0.01, 0.01, 0.01}
400

respectively.
Lastly, for the application of sliding mode observer based

Y Axis [mm]
sliding mode control, controller and observer gains have been 300

chosen as

λc = {90, 90, 100}

200
ε = {45, 45, 60}
k = {23.5, 23.5, 23.5}
λ = {27000, 27000, 27000} 100

l = {−0.05, −0.035, −0.045}

k2 = {0.001, 0.001, 0.001}
0
kt2 = {0.01, 0.01, 0.01}. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
X Axis [mm]

Position tracking errors of all axes, path contour errors

Fig. 2. Desired circular path.
[15] and a quadrant of desired circular motion with actual
motion are given in Figure 4, 5 and 6, respectively and the
compared maximum tracking and contouring results of the closed-loop structures implemented in this study because of
control methods applied in the XY positioning table are the number of parameters to be adjusted.
presented in Table II. It can be observed from the table and
related figures that, when only PID position control algorithm IV. C ONCLUSION
is used, the maximum value of the position tracking error
of axes in the quadrants is 0.02 mm. After the inclusion of In this study, the effect of observer-based controllers on
the estimated axis velocity and disturbance effects in the the contour error occurring in path tracking in the ball
closed-loop control system with the help of the observer screw driven industrial systems is investigated. According to
structures, maximum values of tracking and contour errors the results obtained in comparative experiments on the XY
decrease more than 50% and remain below 0.01 mm. As an positioning table with the application of the PID controller
example of a nonlinear control application, in the experiment combined with Luenberger and sliding mode observers, it
carried out with the sliding mode observer based sliding can be seen that Luenberger observer-based PID controller
mode controller, tracking errors are also less than 0.01 mm. structure performed better in compensating the glitch effect.
Besides, satisfying path-tracking responses are obtained as
The applied control signals are presented in Figure 7, while a result of the experimental study with the sliding mode
the observed values of disturbance signals are depicted in observer and the sliding mode controller. However, when all
Figure 8. According to the experimental results, noting that the results are evaluated, it is concluded that the application
the gains of both the observers and the controllers are adjusted with the Luenberger observer and PID controller can be
during the experiments, it is seen that the most effective preferred due to the structural simplicity and the ease of
method in eliminating the glitch effect is the PID controller gain adjustment. Future work will focus on cascade control
with the Luenberger observer. However, as a result of this structures using external (load) position measurement along
study, it has been concluded that the PID controller with the with motor encoder and analyze the effects on contour error
Luenberger observer can be applied more easily than other compensation experimentally.

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - YILDIZ TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on February 20,2024 at 10:44:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 PID Control PID Control+Luenberger Observer
0.02 0.01

Contour Error [mm]

Contour Error [mm]

0.01 0.005

0 0

-0.01 -0.005

-0.02 -0.01
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
Time [s] Time [s]

PID Control+Sliding Mode Observer Sliding Mode Control+Sliding Mode Observer

0.01 0.01

Contour Error [mm]

Contour Error [mm]

0.005 0.005

0 0

-0.005 -0.005

-0.01 -0.01
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
Time [s] Time [s]

Fig. 3. Desired position/velocity/acceleration trajectories. Fig. 5. Contour error.

Fig. 4. Axes position error. Fig. 6. Desired and actual circular path trajectories for a quadrant.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT R EFERENCES
This project is supported by The Scientific and Technolog-
[1] Huang, T., Kang, Y., Du, S. et al., ”A survey of modeling and control
ical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) 1511 Research in ball screw feed-drive system”, The International Journal of Advanced
Technology Development and Innovation Projects in Priority Manufacturing Technology, vol. 121, pp. 2923–2946, 2022.
Areas G. P. (Technology Focused Industrial Movement Pro- [2] Abdullah, L., Jamaludin, Z., Ahsan, Q., et al., ”Evaluation on tracking
performance of PID, gain scheduling and classical cascade P/PI con-
gram) under Grant No: 1190131 and carried out in ALTINAY troller on XY table ballscrew drive system”, World Applied Sciences
Robot Technologies Inc., Istanbul. Journal, vol. 21, no. 1, pp.1-10, 2013.

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - YILDIZ TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on February 20,2024 at 10:44:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Fig. 7. Axes control signal. Fig. 8. Axes disturbance estimation.

[3] Itagaki, H. and Tsutsumi, M., ”Control system design of a linear motor [15] Cheng, M. Y. and Lee, C. C., ”On real-time contour error estimation for
feed drive system using virtual friction” Precision Engineering, vol. 38, contour following tasks”, Proceedings, 2005 IEEE/ASME International
no. 2, pp.237–248, 2014. Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics., pp. 1047-1052,
[4] Fujimoto, H. and Takemura, T., ”High-precision control of ball-screw- 2005.
driven stage based on repetitive control using n-times learning filter”,
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 61, no.7, pp.3694-
3703, 2014.
[5] Rafan, N.A., Jamaludin, Z., Chiew, T.H., et al., ”Contour error analysis
of precise positioning for ball screw driven stage using friction model
feedforward” Procedia CIRP, vol. 26, pp.712-717, 2015.
[6] Rafan, N.A., Jamaludin, Z., Chiew, T.H., et al. ”Quadrant Glitch
Analysis For Ball Screw Driven Positioning Stage Using A Friction
Compensation Model Feedforward” J. Sci., vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1875–
1878, 2014.
[7] Bui, B.D., Uchiyama, N. and Simba, K.R., ”Contouring control for three-
axis machine tools based on nonlinear friction compensation for lead
screws”, International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, vol.
108, pp.95-105, 2016.
[8] Rafan, N.A., Jamaludin, Z. and Heng, C.T., ”Investigation on tracking
performance of adaptive friction compensation using cascade P/PI con-
troller at low velocity” In 2016 International Conference on Computer
and Communication Engineering (ICCCE), pp. 149-154, 2016.
[9] Papageorgiou, D., Blanke, M., Niemann, H.H. and Richter, J.H.,
”Adaptive and sliding mode friction-resilient machine tool position-
ing–Cascaded control revisited”, Mechanical Systems and Signal Pro-
cessing, vol. 132, pp.35-54, 2019.
[10] Ohashi, T., Shibata, H., Futami, S. and Sato, R., ”Quadrant glitch
compensation by a modified disturbance observer for linear motor
stages”, Precision Engineering, vol. 59, pp. 18–25, 2019.
[11] Ohashi, T., Shibata, H., Futami, S. and Sato, R., ”Nanometer-order
contouring control in a feed drive system using linear ball guides by
applying a combination of modified disturbance observer and repetitive
control”, Nanomanufacturing and Metrology, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 118-129,
2021.
[12] Khalil, H. K., ”Nonlinear control”, New York: Pearson, 2015.
[13] Chen, W.H., Yang, J., Guo, L. and Li, S., ”Disturbance-observer-
based control and related methods–An overview”. IEEE Transactions
on Industrial Electronics, vol. 63(2), pp.1083-1095, 2015.
[14] Deng, Y., Wang, J., Li, H., Liu, J. and Tian, D., ”Adaptive sliding
mode current control with sliding mode disturbance observer for PMSM
drives”, ISA transactions, vol. 88, pp.113-126, 2019.

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - YILDIZ TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on February 20,2024 at 10:44:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.