Continuous Preview Control of Dual-Stage Actuator systems for reduced transition time

Preview control design is proposed in order to reduce the settling time of Dual-Stage Actuators (DSAs). It is shown that a significantly better performance is achieved by exploring the extra degree of freedom provided by the secondary actuator before the output transition instant. Given the information of the immediate future reference point, the proposed strategy allows the slow actuator to move ahead of time while the fast actuator maintains the total output at the desired reference. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology when compared to a conventional form of DSA control design.