Hierarchical fuzzy controllers for an astronomical telescope tracking

The paper presents an application of fuzzy logic controller (FLC) with hierarchically structured rule base for a two-link direct drive Celestron telescope. The hierarchical fuzzy logic controller (HFLC) is implemented, as nonlinear blocks used in a control system, for supervision of PID controller for position tracking of the telescope driven by electric motors. The HFLC is composed of two FLC stages connected in cascade. The input variables, for the first stage, of the HFLC are the position error and the rate of change in the position error. Then the output from the first stage and the position error integral are used as input variables for the second stage of the HFLC PID. The simulation results of the proposed HFLC PID, when the telescope is subjected to a unit step in reference position, are compared with the PID controller. The dynamic responses of the HFLC PID improve the rise time, damping factor and settling time compared with the PID controller. Also, the proposed techniques, hierarchical fuzzy PID controller, reduce the computation time due to reduction of rule base. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed HFLC PID controller scheme as a promising technique. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.