DC motor inertia estimation for robust bilateral control

Identification of system parameters of a small DC motor is a complex and challenging task. This research proposes a disturbance observer (DOB) based novel Change of Inertia Observer (CIOB) to estimate the moment of inertia of a DC motor. Moment of inertia of a small DC motor is estimated using CIOB based velocity test and reaction torque observer (RTOB) based inverse motion acceleration test, and the results are compared with conventional acceleration and deceleration motion tests. These two conventional tests are more suitable for large DC motors and less accurate for small DC motors. DOB is used to estimate the disturbance torques and CIOB is to find the change of inertia. Estimated moments of inertia values using the proposed methods are compared with the conventional methods by applying the values to a bilateral teleoperation system. Proposed methods have produced better results than in the conventional methods. Proposed CIOB method of inertia estimation is much simpler and easier to use compared to conventional methods.