Dual-Motor Coordination for High-Quality Servo With Transmission Backlash

The dual-motor drive is common in many heavy-duty swinging arm servo systems. A well-tuned dual-motor drive can provide better stability and durability than the regular single motor servo. However, the backlash is usually unavoidable in the heavy transmission chains. In this article, the issues provoked by the backlash are resolved by a virtual average motor model and a simple anti-backlash torsion torque. The transient performance is guaranteed by the dual-motor synchronous drive, and the anti-backlash strategy is only enabled when the load is approaching the reference position. The challenge is that the motion system structure is transforming during this transition. The model predictive control combined with the extended state observer is applied to get adaptive in this scenario. The expected effect is that the servo can track the desired position with high precision and high response. The scheme is comprehensively validated and evaluated in an experimental servo setup with a dual-motor drive.