A study on position control of piezoelectric actuators

The hysteresis characteristic of piezoelectric actuators makes precise position control very difficult. In this study a tracking control method for a piezoelectric actuator based on PID controller augmented with a feedback linearization loop based on the Maxwell slip model is presented. Further, the controller design is extended to include a repetitive controller. Experiments were performed on a piezoelectric 2-axis linear positioner for tracking sinusoidal waveforms and circles. The experimental results show that the tracking control performance is noticeably improved by augmenting the PID controller with a feedback linearization loop and repetitive controller.