In this document are gathered and summarized all the developments done for the design of the Nano Active Stabilization System.
This consists of a nano-hexapod and an associated control architecture that are used to stabilize samples down to the nano-meter level in presence of disturbances.
<li>the frequency content of the sources of disturbances such as vibrations induced by the micro-station’s stages and ground motion (Section <ahref="#orgeba0e8d">3</a>)</li>
In Section <ahref="#org96dd77b">1.2</a> is introduced the <b>dynamic error budgeting</b> which is a powerful tool that allows to derive the total error in a dynamic system from multiple disturbance sources.
The use of Feedback control in a motion system required to use some sensors to monitor the actual status of the system and actuators to modifies this status.
The use of feedback control as several advantages and pitfalls that are listed below (taken from <aclass='org-ref-reference'href="#schmidt14_desig_high_perfor_mechat_revis_edition">schmidt14_desig_high_perfor_mechat_revis_edition</a>):
Feedback controlled systems can also be designed for <i>robustness</i>, which means that the stability and performance requirements are guaranteed even for parameter variation of the controller mechatronics system</li>
A feedback controller reacts on the difference between the reference signal (wanted motion) and the measurement (actual motion), which means that the error has to occur first <i>before</i> the controller can correct for it.
The limited reaction speed means that the controller will be able to compensate the positioning errors only in some frequency band, called the controller <i>bandwidth</i></li>
<li><b>Feedback of noise</b>:
By closing the loop, the sensor noise is also fed back and will induce positioning errors</li>
<li><b>Can introduce instability</b>:
Feedback control can destabilize a stable plant.
Thus the <i>robustness</i> properties of the feedback system must be carefully guaranteed</li>
If we write down the position error signal \(\epsilon = r - y\) as a function of the reference signal \(r\), the disturbances \(d\) and the measurement noise \(n\) (using the feedback diagram in Figure <ahref="#orgcb81af9">1</a>), we obtain:
Moreover, the slope of \(|S(j\omega)|\) is limited for stability reasons (not explained here), and therefore a large control bandwidth is required to obtain sufficient disturbance rejection at lower frequencies (where the disturbances have usually large effects).
The main issue it that for stability reasons, <b>the system dynamics must be known with only small uncertainty in the vicinity of the crossover frequency</b>.
For mechanical systems, this generally means that the control bandwidth should take place before any appearing of flexible dynamics (right part of Figure <ahref="#org16689cc">3</a>).
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 3: </span>Envisaged developments in motion systems. In traditional motion systems, the control bandwidth takes place in the rigid-body region. In the next generation systemes, flexible dynamics are foreseen to occur within the control bandwidth. <aclass='org-ref-reference'href="#oomen18_advan_motion_contr_precis_mechat">oomen18_advan_motion_contr_precis_mechat</a></p>
The nano-hexapod and the control architecture have to be developed in such a way that the feedback system remains stable and exhibit acceptable performance for all these possible changes in the system.
The dynamic error budgeting is a powerful tool to study the effects of multiple error sources (i.e. disturbances and measurement noise) and to predict how much these effects are reduced by a feedback system.
After these two functions are introduced (in Sections <ahref="#org702f303">1.2.1</a> and <ahref="#org7f43592">1.2.2</a>), is shown how do multiple error sources are combined and modified by dynamical systems (in Section <ahref="#org1ec4208">1.2.3</a> and <ahref="#org10e10c0">1.2.4</a>).
The <b>Power Spectral Density</b> (PSD) \(S_{xx}(f)\) of the time domain signal \(x(t)\) is defined as the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation function:
One can also integrate the infinitesimal power \(S_{xx}(\omega)d\omega\) over a finite frequency band to obtain the power of the signal \(x\) in that frequency band:
The <b>Cumulative Power Spectrum</b> is the cumulative integral of the Power Spectral Density starting from \(0\ \text{Hz}\) with increasing frequency:
The Cumulative Power Spectrum is generally shown as a function of frequency, and is used to determine at which frequencies the effect of disturbances must be reduced, and thus the approximate required control bandwidth.
Let’s consider a signal \(u\) with a PSD \(S_{uu}\) going through a LTI system \(G(s)\) that outputs a signal \(y\) with a PSD (Figure <ahref="#orgdc11f34">4</a>).
To do so, we need to identify the dynamics of the micro-station (Section <ahref="#org9b4f290">2</a>), include this dynamics in a model (Section <ahref="#org8c84cc4">4</a>) and add a model of the nano-hexapod to the model (Section <ahref="#org38e75eb">5</a>)</li>
<li>The controller \(K\) that will be designed in Section <ahref="#orge40f082">6</a></li>
All the measurements performed on the micro-station are detailed in <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/meas-analysis/">this</a> document and summarized in the following sections.
To limit the number of degrees of freedom to be measured, we suppose that in the frequency range of interest (DC-300Hz), each of the positioning stage is behaving as a <b>solid body</b>.
Thus, to fully describe the dynamics of the station, we (only) need to measure 6 degrees of freedom for each positioning stage (that is 36 degrees of freedom for the 6 considered solid bodies).
From the measurements are extracted all the transfer functions from forces applied at the location of the hammer impacts to the x-y-z acceleration of each solid body at the location of each accelerometer.
From the reduced transfer function matrix, we can re-synthesize the response at the 69 measured degrees of freedom and we find that we have an exact match.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 11: </span>Frequency Response Function from forces applied by the Hammer in the X direction to the acceleration of each solid body in the X direction</p>
The dynamical measurements made on the micro-station confirmed the fact that a multi-body model is a good option to correctly represents the micro-station dynamics.
In Section <ahref="#org8c84cc4">4</a>, the obtained Frequency Response Functions will be used to compare the model dynamics with the micro-station dynamics.
Note that the low frequency disturbances such as static guiding errors and thermal effects are not much of interest here, because the frequency content of these errors will be located way inside the controller bandwidth and thus will be easily compensated by the nano-hexapod.
The main challenge is to reduce the disturbances containing high frequencies, and thus efforts are made to identify these high frequency disturbances such as:
A noise budgeting is performed in Section <ahref="#org9ec5f3c">3.4</a>, the vibrations induced by the disturbances are compared and the required control bandwidth is estimated.
The measurements are presented in more detail in <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/meas-analysis/">this</a> document and the open loop noise budget is done in <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/disturbances.html">this</a> document.
The measured Power Spectral Density of the ground motion at the ID31 floor is compared with other measurements performed at ID09 and at CERN.
The low frequency differences between the ground motion at ID31 and ID09 is just due to the fact that for the later measurement, the low frequency sensitivity of the inertial sensor was not taken into account.
It is shown that these local feedback loops have little influence on the sample’s vibrations except the Spindle that introduced a sample’s vertical motion at 25Hz.
Complete reports on these measurements are accessible <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/meas-analysis/2018-10-15%20-%20Marc/index.html">here</a> and <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/meas-analysis/disturbance-control-system/index.html">here</a>.
Details reports are accessible <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/meas-analysis/disturbance-ty/index.html">here</a> for the translation stage and <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/meas-analysis/disturbance-sr-rz/index.html">here</a> for the spindle/slip-ring.
Some investigation should be performed to determine where does this 23Hz motion comes from and why such high frequency motion is introduced by the spindle’s motor.
A 1Hz triangle motion with an amplitude of \(\pm 2.5mm\) is sent to the translation stage (Figure <ahref="#orgb0485f3">16</a>), and the absolute velocities of the sample and the granite are measured.
The ASD contains any peaks starting from 1Hz showing the large spectral content of the motion which is probably due to the triangular reference of the translation stage.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 18: </span>Amplitude spectral density of the measure velocity corresponding to the geophone in the vertical direction located on the granite and at the sample location when the translation stage is scanning at 1Hz</p>
The Power Spectral Density of the motion error due to the ground motion, translation stage scans and spindle rotation are shown in Figure <ahref="#org2e64e56">19</a>.
From Figure <ahref="#org5b015be">20</a>, required bandwidth can be estimated by seeing that \(10\ nm [rms]\) motion is induced by the perturbations above 100Hz.
All the disturbance measurements were made with inertial sensors, and to obtain the relative motion sample/granite, two inertial sensors were used and the signals were subtracted.
An alternative could be to position a small calibrated sphere at the sample location and to use the X-ray to measure its motion while performing translation scans and spindle rotations.
As was shown during the modal analysis (Section <ahref="#org9b4f290">2</a>), the micro-station behaves as multiple rigid bodies (granite, translation stage, tilt stage, spindle, hexapod) connected with some discrete flexibility (stiffnesses and dampers).
A small summary of the multi-body Simscape is available <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/simscape.html">here</a> and each of the modeled stage is described <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/simscape_subsystems.html">here</a>.
The stiffnesses between two solid bodies is first guessed from either measurements of data-sheets.
Then, the values of the stiffnesses and damping properties of each joint is manually tuned until the obtained dynamics is sufficiently close to the measured dynamics.
Tuning the dynamics of such model is very difficult as there are more than 50 parameters to tune and many different dynamics to compare between the model and the measurements.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 22: </span>Frequency Response function from Hammer force in the X,Y and Z directions to the X,Y and Z displacements of the micro-hexapod’s top platform. The measurements are shown in blue and the Model in red.</p>
More detailed comparison between the model and the measured dynamics is performed <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/identification.html">here</a>.
</p>
<p>
Now that the multi-body model dynamics as been tuned, the following elements are included:
</p>
<ulclass="org-ul">
<li>Actuators to perform the motion of each stage (translation, tilt, spindle, hexapod)</li>
<li>Sensors to measure the motion of each stage and the relative motion of the sample with respect to the granite (metrology system)</li>
<li>Disturbances such as ground motion and stage’s vibrations</li>
</ul>
<p>
Then, using the model, we can
</p>
<ulclass="org-ul">
<li>perform simulation of experiments in presence of disturbances</li>
<li>identify the dynamics from inputs (forces, imposed displacement) to outputs (measured motion, force sensor, etc.) which will be useful for the nano-hexapod design and the control synthesis</li>
<li>include a multi-body model of the nano-hexapod and perform closed-loop simulations</li>
<li>First, the <b>wanted pose</b> (3 translations and 3 rotations) of the sample with respect to the granite is computed.
This is determined from the wanted motion of each micro-station stage: each wanted stage motion is represented by a homogeneous transformation matrix that are combined to give to total wanted motion of the sample with respect to the granite</li>
<li>Then, the <b>actual pose</b> of the sample with respect to the granite is computed.
For the real system, this will require the use of several interferometers and computations to obtain the sample’s pose from the individual measurements.
However, the pose of the sample with respect to the granite is directly measured using a special simscape block</li>
<li>Finally, the wanted pose is compared with the measured pose to compute the <b>position error of the sample</b>.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 25: </span>Tomography Experiment using the Simscape Model - Zoom on the sample’s position (the full vertical scale is \(\approx 10 \mu m\))</p>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 26: </span>Position error of the Sample with respect to the granite during a Tomography Experiment with included disturbances</p>
In the next sections, it will allows to optimally design the nano-hexapod, to develop a robust control architecture and to perform simulations to estimate the system’s performances.
For instance, it is quite obvious that a stiff nano-hexapod is better than a soft one when it comes to direct forces applied to the sample such as cable forces.
</p>
<p>
A complete study of the optimal nano-hexapod stiffness for the minimization of disturbance sensibility <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/optimal_stiffness_disturbances.html">here</a> and summarized below.
The sensibility to the spindle’s vibration for all the considered nano-hexapod stiffnesses (from \(10^3\,[N/m]\) to \(10^9\,[N/m]\)) is shown in Figure <ahref="#orgdcc5279">27</a>.
We can see that above the suspension mode of the nano-hexapod, the norm of the transmissibility is close to one until the suspension mode of the granite.
It will be suggested in Section <ahref="#org282978a">7.6</a> that using soft mounts for the granite can greatly lower the sensibility to ground motion.
However, lowering the sensibility to some disturbance at a frequency where its effect is already small compare to the other disturbances sources is not really interesting.
What is more important than comparing the sensitivity to disturbances, is thus to compare the obtain power spectral density of the sample’s position error.
From the Power Spectral Density of all the sources of disturbances identified in Section <ahref="#orgeba0e8d">3</a>, we compute what would be the Power Spectral Density of the vertical motion error for all the considered nano-hexapod stiffnesses (Figure <ahref="#orgb6d03fc">29</a>).
We can see that the most important change is in the frequency range 30Hz to 300Hz where a stiffness smaller than \(10^5\,[N/m]\) greatly reduces the sample’s vibrations.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 29: </span>Amplitude Spectral Density of the Sample vertical position error due to Vertical vibration of the Spindle for multiple nano-hexapod stiffnesses</p>
If we look at the Cumulative amplitude spectrum of the vertical error motion in Figure <ahref="#org2b454a8">30</a>, we can observe that a soft hexapod (\(k <10^5-10^6\,[N/m]\))helpsreducingthehighfrequencydisturbances,andthusasmallercontrolbandwidthwillsufficetoobtainthewantedperformance.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 30: </span>Cumulative Amplitude Spectrum of the Sample vertical position error due to all considered perturbations for multiple nano-hexapod stiffnesses</p>
One of the most important design goal is to obtain a system that is <b>robust</b> to all changes in the system.
Therefore, we have to identify all changes that might occurs in the system and choose the nano-hexapod stiffness such that the uncertainty to these changes is minimized.
<li>A change in the <b>Support’s compliance</b> (complete analysis <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/uncertainty_support.html">here</a>): if the micro-station dynamics is changing due to the change of parts or just because of aging effects, the feedback system should remains stable and the obtained performance should not change</li>
<li>A change in the <b>Payload mass/dynamics</b> (complete analysis <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/uncertainty_payload.html">here</a>): the sample’s mass is ranging from \(1\,kg\) to \(50\,kg\)</li>
<li>A change of <b>experimental condition</b> such as the micro-station’s pose or the spindle rotation (complete analysis <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/uncertainty_experiment.html">here</a>)</li>
Because of the trade-off between robustness and performance, the bigger the plant dynamic uncertainty, the lower the simultaneous attainable performance is for all the plants.
Thus, all these uncertainties will limit the attainable bandwidth and hence the obtained performance.
In the next sections, the effect the considered changes on the <b>plant dynamics</b> is quantified and conclusions are made on the optimal stiffness for robustness properties.
In the following study, when we refer to plant dynamics, this means the dynamics from forces applied by the nano-hexapod to the measured sample’s position by the metrology.
We will only compare the plant dynamics as it is the most important dynamics for robustness and performance properties.
However, the dynamics from forces to sensors located in the nano-hexapod legs, such as force and relative motion sensors, have also been considered in a separate study.
In Figure <ahref="#org0ab249e">31</a> the dynamics is shown for payloads having a first resonance mode at 100Hz and a mass equal to 1kg, 20kg and 50kg.
On the left side, the change of dynamics is computed for a very soft nano-hexapod, while on the right side, it is computed for a very stiff nano-hexapod.
<li>the first resonance (suspension mode of the nano-hexapod) is lowered with an increase of the sample’s mass.
This first resonance corresponds to \(\omega = \sqrt{\frac{k_n}{m_n + m_s}}\) where \(k_n\) is the vertical nano-hexapod stiffness, \(m_n\) the mass of the nano-hexapod’s top platform, and \(m_s\) the sample’s mass</li>
<li>the gain after the first resonance and up until the anti-resonance at 100Hz is changing with the sample’s mass</li>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 31: </span>Dynamics from \(\mathcal{F}_z\) to \(\mathcal{X}_z\) for varying payload mass, both for a soft nano-hexapod (left) and a stiff nano-hexapod (right)</p>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 32: </span>Dynamics from \(\mathcal{F}_z\) to \(\mathcal{X}_z\) for varying payload resonance frequency, both for a soft nano-hexapod and a stiff nano-hexapod</p>
The dynamics for all the payloads (mass from 1kg to 50kg and first resonance from 50Hz to 500Hz) and all the considered nano-hexapod stiffnesses are display in Figure <ahref="#org700f2ac">33</a>.
For nano-hexapod stiffnesses below \(10^6\,[N/m]\):
</p>
<ulclass="org-ul">
<li>the phase stays between 0 and -180deg which is a very nice property for control</li>
<li>the dynamical change up until the resonance of the payload is mostly a change of gain</li>
</ul>
<p>
For nano-hexapod stiffnesses above \(10^7\,[N/m]\):
</p>
<ulclass="org-ul">
<li>the dynamics is unchanged until the first resonance which is around 25Hz-35Hz</li>
<li>above that frequency, the change of dynamics is quite chaotic (we will see in the next section that this is due to the micro-station dynamics)</li>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 33: </span>Dynamics from \(\mathcal{F}_z\) to \(\mathcal{X}_z\) for varying payload dynamics, both for a soft nano-hexapod and a stiff nano-hexapod</p>
</div>
<divclass="important">
<p>
For soft nano-hexapods, the payload has an important impact on the dynamics.
This will have to be carefully taken into account for the controller design.
</p>
<p>
For stiff nano-hexapod, the dynamics doe not change with the payload until the first resonance frequency of the nano-hexapod or of the payload.
</p>
<p>
If possible, the first resonance frequency of the payload should be maximized (stiff fixation).
</p>
<p>
Heavy samples with low first resonance mode will be very problematic.
To identify the effect of the micro-station compliance on the system dynamics, for each nano-hexapod stiffness, we identify the plant dynamics in two different case (Figure <ahref="#org5c95a44">34</a>):
<li>with the micro-station dynamics (dashed curves)</li>
</ul>
<p>
One can see that for nano-hexapod stiffnesses below \(10^6\,[N/m]\), the plant dynamics does not significantly changed due to the micro station dynamics (the solid and dashed curves are superimposed).
</p>
<p>
For nano-hexapod stiffnesses above \(10^7\,[N/m]\), the micro-station compliance appears in the plant dynamics starting at about 45Hz.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 34: </span>Change of dynamics from force \(\mathcal{F}_x\) to displacement \(\mathcal{X}_x\) due to the micro-station compliance</p>
If the resonance of the nano-hexapod is below the first resonance of the micro-station, then the micro-station dynamics if “filtered out” and does not appears in the dynamics to be controlled.
This renders the system robust to any possible change of the micro-station dynamics.
</p>
<p>
If a stiff nano-hexapod is used, the control bandwidth should probably be limited to around the first micro-station’s mode (\(\approx 45\,[Hz]\)) which will likely no give acceptable performance.
One can see that for nano-hexapods with a stiffness above \(10^5\,[N/m]\), the dynamics is mostly not changing with the spindle’s rotating speed.
For very soft nano-hexapods, the main resonance is split into two resonances and one anti-resonance that are all moving at a function of the rotating speed.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 35: </span>Change of dynamics from force \(\mathcal{F}_x\) to displacement \(\mathcal{X}_x\) for a spindle rotation speed from 0rpm to 60rpm</p>
</div>
<divclass="important">
<p>
If the resonance of the nano-hexapod is (say a factor 5) above the maximum rotation speed, then the plant dynamics will be mostly not impacted by the rotation.
</p>
<p>
A very soft (\(k <10^4\,[N/m]\))nano-hexapodshouldnotbeusedduetotheeffectofthespindle’srotation.
Finally, let’s combined all the uncertainties and display the plant dynamics “spread” for all the nano-hexapod stiffnesses (Figure <ahref="#org24d598f">36</a>).
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 36: </span>Variability of the dynamics from \(\bm{\mathcal{F}}_x\) to \(\bm{\mathcal{X}}_x\) with varying nano-hexapod stiffness</p>
<li>the payload’s mass influence the plant dynamics above the first resonance of the nano-hexapod.
Thus a high nano-hexapod stiffness helps reducing the effect of a change of the payload’s mass</li>
<li>the payload’s first resonance is seen as an anti-resonance in the plant dynamics.
As this effect will largely be variable from one payload to the other, <b>the payload’s first resonance should be maximized</b> (above 300Hz if possible) for all used payloads</li>
<li>the dynamics of the nano-hexapod is not affected by the micro-station dynamics (compliance) when \(k <10^6\,[N/m]\)</li>
<li>the spindle’s rotating speed has no significant influence on the plant dynamics for nano-hexapods with a stiffness \(k > 10^5\,[N/m]\)</li>
Concerning the plant dynamic uncertainty, the resonance frequency of the nano-hexapod should be between 5Hz (way above the maximum rotating speed) and 50Hz (before the first micro-station resonance) for all the considered payloads.
This corresponds to an optimal nano-hexapod leg stiffness in the range \(10^5 - 10^6\,[N/m]\).
</p>
<p>
In such case, the main limitation will be heavy samples with small stiffnesses.
The kinematic analysis of a parallel manipulator is well described in <aclass='org-ref-reference'href="#taghirad13_paral">taghirad13_paral</a>:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Kinematic analysis refers to the study of the geometry of motion of a robot, without considering the forces an torques that cause the motion.
In this analysis, the relation between the geometrical parameters of the manipulator with the final motion of the moving platform is derived and analyzed.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
From <aclass='org-ref-reference'href="#taghirad13_paral">taghirad13_paral</a>:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
The Jacobian matrix not only reveals the <b>relation between the joint variable velocities of a parallel manipulator to the moving platform linear and angular velocities</b>, it also constructs the transformation needed to find the <b>actuator forces from the forces and moments acting on the moving platform</b>.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
The Jacobian matrix \(\bm{\mathcal{J}}\) can be computed form the orientation of the legs and the position of the flexible joints.
</p>
<p>
If we note:
</p>
<ulclass="org-ul">
<li>\(\delta\bm{\mathcal{L}} = [ \delta l_1, \delta l_2, \delta l_3, \delta l_4, \delta l_5, \delta l_6 ]^T\): the vector of small legs’ displacements</li>
<li>\(\delta \bm{\mathcal{X}} = [\delta x, \delta y, \delta z, \delta \theta_x, \delta \theta_y, \delta \theta_z ]^T\): the vector of small mobile platform displacements</li>
Kinematic Study <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/stewart-simscape/kinematic-study.html">https://tdehaeze.github.io/stewart-simscape/kinematic-study.html</a>
</p>
<p>
Mobility can be estimated from the architecture of the Stewart platform and the leg’s stroke.
</p>
<p>
Stiffness properties is estimated from the architecture and leg’s stiffness
Active Damping Study <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/stewart-simscape/control-active-damping.html">https://tdehaeze.github.io/stewart-simscape/control-active-damping.html</a>
Flexible Joint stiffness => not problematic for the chosen active damping technique
Study of cubic architecture <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/stewart-simscape/cubic-configuration.html">https://tdehaeze.github.io/stewart-simscape/cubic-configuration.html</a>
Has some advantages such as uniform stiffness and uniform mobility.
It can have very nice properties in specific conditions that will not be the case for this application.
The cubic configuration also puts much restriction on the position and orientation of each leg.
In Section <ahref="#org5097fcd">5.1</a>, it has been concluded that a nano-hexapod stiffness below \(10^5-10^6\,[N/m]\) helps reducing the high frequency vibrations induced by all sources of disturbances considered.
As the high frequency vibrations are the most difficult to compensate for when using feedback control, a soft hexapod will most certainly helps improving the performances.
In Section <ahref="#org1ec4290">5.2</a>, we concluded that a nano-hexapod leg stiffness in the range \(10^5 - 10^6\,[N/m]\) is a good compromise between the uncertainty induced by the micro-station dynamics and by the rotating speed.
Thus, a stiffness of \(10^5\,[N/m]\) will be used in Section <ahref="#orge40f082">6</a> to develop the robust control architecture and to perform simulations.
A more detailed study of the determination of the optimal stiffness based on all the effects is available <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/uncertainty_optimal_stiffness.html">here</a>.
<li>Ground motion and stage vibrations have been estimated and included in the model</li>
<li>The optimal nano-hexapod stiffness has been determined such that is minimizes the effect of disturbances and at the same time reduces the plant dynamic uncertainty</li>
It is preferred to design <b>one</b> controller that gives acceptable performance for <b>all</b> the changes in the system (payload masses, spindle’s rotation speeds, etc).
This is however quite challenging as the plant dynamics does depend quite a lot on the payload’s mass.
If it turns out it not possible to develop a robust controller that gives acceptable performance, an alternative would be to develop an <b>adaptive</b> controller that depends on the payload mass/inertia.
This would require to measure the mass/inertia of each used payload and manually choose the controller that was design for that particular mass/inertia.
One of the possible control architecture that seems adapted for the current problem is the <b>High Authority Control / Low Authority Control</b> (HAC-LAC) architecture.
Some properties of the HAC-LAC architecture are explained below (taken from <aclass='org-ref-reference'href="#preumont18_vibrat_contr_activ_struc_fourt_edition">preumont18_vibrat_contr_activ_struc_fourt_edition</a>):
The inner loop uses a set of collocated actuator/sensor pairs for decentralized active damping with guaranteed stability ; the outer loop consists of a non-collocated HAC based on a model of the actively damped structure.
Depending on the chosen active damping technique, either force sensors, relative motion sensors or inertial sensors should be included in each of the nano-hexapod’s legs.
A separate study (accessible <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/rotating-frame/index.html">here</a>) about the use of all three sensors types have been done, the conclusions are:
<li>the use of force sensors is to be avoided as it could introduce instability in the system due to the nano-hexapod’s rotation</li>
<li>the use of inertial sensor should not be used as it would tends to decouple the motion of the sample from the motion of the granite (which is not wanted).
It would also be difficult to apply in a robust way due to the non-collocation with the actuators</li>
<li>relative motion sensors can be used to damped the nano-hexapod’s modes in a robust way but may increase the sensibility to stages vibrations</li>
<b>Relative motion sensors</b> are then included in each of the nano-hexapod’s leg and a decentralized direct velocity feedback control architecture is applied (Figure <ahref="#org626b5f9">46</a>).
\(\bm{K}_{\text{DVF}}\) is a diagonal controller with derivative action.
This is equivalent as to have six independent control loops from the relative motion sensor of one leg to the actuator of the same leg.
The force applied in each leg being proportional to the relative velocity of the associated leg (thanks to the derivative action), this adds <b>damping</b> to the nano-hexapod’s modes.
The plant dynamics before (solid curves) and after (dashed curves) the Low Authority Control implementation are compared in Figure <ahref="#orgc3adbfd">47</a>.
It is shown that the DVF control lowers the sensibility to disturbances in the vicinity of the nano-hexapod resonance but increases the sensibility at higher frequencies.
</p>
<p>
This is probably not the optimal gain that could have been used, and further analysis and optimization should be performed.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 48: </span>Norm of the transfer function from vertical disturbances to vertical position error with (dashed) and without (solid) Direct Velocity Feedback applied</p>
The complete HAC-LAC architecture is shown in Figure <ahref="#org086c358">49</a> where an outer loop is added to the decentralized direct velocity feedback loop.
The block <code>Compute Position Error</code> is used to compute the position error \(\bm{\epsilon}_{\mathcal{X}_n}\) of the sample with respect to the nano-hexapod’s base platform from the actual measurement of the sample’s pose \(\bm{\mathcal{X}}\) and the wanted pose \(\bm{r}_\mathcal{X}\).
The position error \(\bm{\epsilon}_{\mathcal{X}_n}\) expressed in the frame of the nano-hexapod is then multiply by the nano-hexapod’s Jacobian \(\bm{J}\) (which is a real matrix) to obtain the corresponding length error of each of the nano hexapod’s leg \(\bm{\epsilon}_\mathcal{L}\).
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 49: </span>Cascade Control Architecture. The inner loop consist of a decentralized Direct Velocity Feedback. The outer loop consist of position control in the leg’s space</p>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 50: </span>Diagonal elements of the transfer function matrix from \(\bm{\tau}^\prime\) to \(\bm{\epsilon}_{\mathcal{X}_n}\) for the three considered masses</p>
The diagonal controller \(\bm{K}_\mathcal{L}\) is then tuned in such a way that the control bandwidth is around 100Hz and such that enough stability margins are obtained for all the payload’s masses used.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 52: </span>Sensibility to disturbances when the HAC-LAC control is applied (dashed) and when it is not (solid)</p>
The Power Spectral Density of the sample’s position error is plotted in Figure <ahref="#org5f39c45">53</a> and the Cumulative Amplitude Spectrum is shown in Figure <ahref="#org33c521c">54</a>.
<li>The obtained performances for all the three considered masses are very similar.
This is an indication of the good system’s robustness</li>
<li>From the Cumulative Amplitude Spectrum, we see that Z motion is reduced down to \(\approx 30\,nm\,[rms]\) and the Y motion down to \(\approx 25\,nm\,[rms]\)</li>
<li>The vertical rotation plot is meaningless as the spindle rotation was considered to be perfect and no attempt was made to compensate these vibrations by the nano-hexapod</li>
An animation of the experiment is shown in Figure <ahref="#org5fe0410">56</a> and we can see that the actual sample’s position is more closely following the ideal position compared to the simulation of the micro-station alone in Figure <ahref="#org2f230a7">25</a> (same scale was used for both animations).
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 55: </span>Position Error of the sample during a tomography experiment when no control is applied and with the HAC-DVF control architecture</p>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 56: </span>Tomography Experiment using the Simscape Model in Closed Loop with the HAC-LAC Control - Zoom on the sample’s position (the full vertical scale is \(\approx 10 \mu m\))</p>
The High Authority Control / Low Authority Control architecture has implemented on the multi-body model of the system.
</p>
<p>
It has been found that relative motion sensors should be included in each of the nano-hexapod’s leg for active damping purposes.
The best sensor technology should further be determined based on cost, ease of integration, bandwidth and resolution.
Possible technologies include capacitive sensors, eddy current sensors and encoders.
</p>
<p>
The control architecture used permits to lower the effect of disturbances up to 100Hz and appears to be very robust to all considered changes in the system.
</p>
<p>
A simulation performed in presence of all ground motion and stage vibrations gives an obtained residual X-Y-Z sample’s vibrations around \(30\,[nm]\,rms\).
The simulation is considered to be fairly realistic as both the model used has been show to properly represents the micro-station dynamics and the disturbances included based on measurements.
A more complete study of the control of the NASS is performed <ahref="https://tdehaeze.github.io/nass-simscape/optimal_stiffness_control.html">here</a>.
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 59: </span>Change of sensibility to Ground motion when using a stiff Granite (solid curves) and a soft Granite (dashed curves)</p>
<ulclass='org-ref-bib'><li><aid="schmidt14_desig_high_perfor_mechat_revis_edition">[schmidt14_desig_high_perfor_mechat_revis_edition]</a><aname="schmidt14_desig_high_perfor_mechat_revis_edition"></a>Schmidt, Schitter & Rankers, The Design of High Performance Mechatronics - 2nd Revised Edition, Ios Press (2014).</li>
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<li><aid="preumont07_six_axis_singl_stage_activ">[preumont07_six_axis_singl_stage_activ]</a><aname="preumont07_six_axis_singl_stage_activ"></a>Preumont, Horodinca, Romanescu, de Marneffe, Avraam, Deraemaeker, Bossens & Abu Hanieh, A Six-Axis Single-Stage Active Vibration Isolator Based on Stewart Platform, <i>Journal of Sound and Vibration</i>, <b>300(3-5)</b>, 644-661 (2007). <ahref="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2006.07.050">link</a>. <ahref="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2006.07.050">doi</a>.</li>
<li><aid="preumont18_vibrat_contr_activ_struc_fourt_edition">[preumont18_vibrat_contr_activ_struc_fourt_edition]</a><aname="preumont18_vibrat_contr_activ_struc_fourt_edition"></a>Andre Preumont, Vibration Control of Active Structures - Fourth Edition, Springer International Publishing (2018).</li>
