Actuator Control – Self-sensing and Control of Actuators

Abstract:
In this review presentation sensorless control schemes for actuators based on self-sensing approaches are presented. When utilizing self-sensing algorithms the electrical behaviour is identified by measuring the electrical terminal quantities in order estimate the mechanical state of the actuators without any mechanical sensors. By this, instrumentational effort and cost can be reduced while robustness can be increased. Since electromagnetic drives represent inductive loads, piezoelectric or dielectric elastomer transducers behave like a shape-varying capacitance and shape memory alloys are an example for resistive loads, the presented self-sensing approaches are divided among these different terminal behaviours and illustrated by proven sensorless actuator controls based on a literature research.