Experimental Verification of Feedback Control of a 2-DOF Spherical Actuator

Abstract

To drive conventional motor drive systems that have multiple degrees of freedom (DOF), such as industrial robot arms, the number of actuators employed has to be equal to the number of DOF. This causes the system to be large and heavy, and also have a lower overall efficiency. To solve these problems, the development of spherical actuators, which can rotate around multiple axes, is being conducted. In general, multi-DOF actuators have many poles and coils, and the currents of the coils have to be controlled individually, making the control system complicated. In this paper, we propose a feedback control method for a 2-DOF actuator that enables the currents of the coils to be easily determined. The effectiveness of the control method is verified through experimental verification.