PID position domain control for contour tracking

Contour error reduction for modern machining processes is an important concern in multi-axis contour tracking applications in order to ensure the quality of final products. Many control methods were developed in time domain to deal with contour tracking problems, and a proportional–derivative (PD) position domain control (PDC) was also proposed by the authors. It is well known that proportional–integral–differential (PID) control is the most popular control in applications of control theory. In this paper, a PID PDC is proposed for reducing contour tracking errors and improving contour tracking performances. To determine proper control gains, system stability analysis is conducted for the proposed PDC. Several experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the developed approach and are compared with the PID time domain control (TDC) and the cross-coupled control. Different control gains are used in the simulations to explore the robustness of PID PDC. Comparison results demonstrate the effectiveness and good contour performances of PID PDC for contour tracking applications.