Experimental comparison on a synchronous motor of linear robust and nonlinear controls

The authors present a linear robust design method (of quantitative feedback theory type) to control a permanent magnet synchronous motor to achieve demanding time domain quantitative specifications despite large parametric and load uncertainties which affect it. The linear control is compared with a nonlinear design (of adaptive feedback linearization type) for the same motor. The experimental results show that the linear control compares favorably to the nonlinear one on robustness of performance and stability, and simplicity of implementation. The nonlinear method did prove the nonlocal stability of the design while the linear method did not.