A Physics-Guided Data-Driven Feedforward Tracking Controller for Systems With Unmodeled Dynamics—Applied to 3D Printing

A hybrid (i.e., physics-guided data-driven) feedforward tracking controller is proposed for systems with unmodeled linear or nonlinear dynamics. The proposed controller is based on the filtered basis functions (FBF) approach, and hence called a hybrid FBF controller. It formulates the feedforward control input to a system as a linear combination of a set of basis functions whose coefficients are selected to minimize tracking errors. To predict the system response and thereby the tracking errors, the basis functions are filtered using a combination of two linear models. The first model is physics-based and remains unaltered during the execution of the controller, while the second is data-driven and is continuously updated during the execution of the controller. To ensure its practicality and safe learning, the proposed hybrid FBF controller is equipped with the abilities to handle delays in data acquisition and to detect impending instability due to its inherent data-driven feedback loop. The effectiveness of the hybrid FBF controller is demonstrated via application to vibration compensation of a 3D printer with unmodeled linear and nonlinear dynamics. Thanks to the proposed hybrid FBF controller, the tracking accuracy of the 3D printer and the print quality are both significantly improved in experiments involving high-speed printing, compared to standard FBF controller that does not incorporate a data-driven model. Furthermore, the ability of the hybrid FBF controller to detect, and hence to potentially avoid, impending instability is demonstrated offline using data collected online from experiments.