Introduction to Servo Tuning
High-throughput precision motion platforms face conflicting operational demands. Production specifications call for rapid step-and-settle times across multiple move lengths, tight dynamic tracking tolerances and immunity to external disturbances. Traditional time-domain proportional-integral-derivative tuning methods often fail to meet those requirements. Gains adjusted for a single step distance frequently destabilize the system when the move parameters change.
Frequency-domain loop shaping gives engineers an analytical framework to optimize servo performance across all move profiles at once, and to identify margin thresholds before instability occurs. Combined with model-based feedforward gains, linear-level switching amplification and dedicated friction compensation, it reduces settling times and minimizes dynamic tracking error.
