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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002

Globoidal Cam Indexing Servo Drive Control by

IVSMFC With Load Torque Estimator
Geeng-Kwei Chang, Tzuen-Lih Chern, and Der-Min Tsay

AbstractThis paper introduces an integral variable-structure

model-following control (IVSMFC) incorporated with a load
torque estimator based on variable-structure technique for a
globoidal cam indexing system. IVSMFC features excellent robustness and performance properties under certain disturbances
and parameter variations. However, heavy time-varying load may
influence expected performance. In a cam system, when it is in
motion, the load produced by inertia forces deflects the driving
motor speed and, as a result, degrades the indexing precision.
To fulfill the constant driving speed assumption, a load torque
estimator is employed and forward fed to compensate the load
torque variations. A digital-signal-processor-based globoidal cam
indexing servo drive is presented and the experimental results
show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Index TermsGloboidal index cam, load estimator, motor drive,
servo control systems, variable-structure systems.
Fig. 1. Globoidal index cam with roller-follower turret. (Tan-Tzu Precision
Machinery Company Ltd., Taiwan, R.O.C.).

I. INTRODUCTION

OTATIONAL indexing devices are widely used in automatic manufacturing processes, providing linear or rotary
indexing, intermittent motion control. Globoidal index cams
with roller-follower turrets (Fig. 1) are very popular mechanisms as compared to other positioning devices [1]. Typical
applications can be found in conveyors, machine tools, press
feed mechanisms, and assembly systems. In such a system,
when it is in motion, the load torque produced by inertia
forces induces deflections and creates vibrations. To meet
the high-speed high-precision and high-rigidity application
requirements, efforts have been made in the viewpoints of mechanical, magnetic and electrical servo control. For high-speed
cam mechanisms, the design of motion curves to minimize
dynamic loading and dwell vibration is important [2], [3].
Various cam profiles that have better dynamic characteristics
have been developed, for example, see [1][4]. These design
Paper IPCSD 02024, presented at the 2001 IEEE International Electric
Machines and Drives Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA, June 1720, and approved for publication in the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Drives Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript submitted for
review July 26, 2001 and released for publication June 4, 2002. This work was
supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan, R.O.C., under Grant
NSC 87-2622-E-110-001.
G.-K. Chang was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National
Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424, R.O.C. He is now with the
Department of Electrical Engineering, WuFeng Institute of Technology, Chiayi,
Taiwan 621, R.O.C. (e-mail: gkchang@sun5.wfc.edu.tw).
T.-L. Chern is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Sun
Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424, R.O.C.
D.-M. Tsay is with the Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical
Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424,
R.O.C.
Publisher Item Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2002.802895.

methods for improving the motion characteristics assumed that

the cam is operated at a constant speed. However, the fluctuating load torque acting on the driving motor resulted from the
rotatedwellrotate cycles of the indexing motion hampers the
speed robustness and, as a consequence, degrades indexing
performance. From the kinematic point of view, some product
incorporate built-in magnetic or mechanical mechanisms
to compensate the load torque fluctuation. These auxiliary
mechanisms successfully improve the dynamic characteristic
and stability.
In this paper, we concentrate on the basic but intrinsic requirement of observing constant input speed by a servo technology to
best transmit the specified indexing motion. Variable-structure
control (VSC) has attracted attentions due to its robustness to
parameter uncertainties and disturbances from the early 1960s
(for a survey, see [5]). Also, it has been successfully applied to
robot manipulators, underwater vehicles, automotive transmissions and engines, high-performance electric motors, and power
systems [6]. Discrete-time versions of VSC have also been proposed in [7] and [8]. Theoretically, with upper bounds of uncertainties known, VSC can assure robustness and stability. In
practice, however, problems relating to over-conservative control and chattering are inevitable [9], especially in discrete-time
implementation where the sampling period is ineligible. Moreover, for systems subject to large disturbances, a large feedback
gain is required to maintain states on sliding surface, which results in deterioration of the transient response. To improve this,
much research has been published. A commonly adopted procedure is the replacement of the chattering part by a smooth
function [10][12]. However, it weakens the systems robustness and contributes little to tracking accuracy. More practical

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CHANG et al.: GLOBOIDAL CAM INDEXING SERVO DRIVE CONTROL

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Fig. 2. Globoidal cams follower motion.

II. MOTION CHARACTERISTICS OF GLOBOIDAL INDEX CAM

Fig. 1 shows a typical globoidal index cam that drives a

hexagonal turret. The cam has a tapered rib and two of the six
rollers are in contact with two sides of it. As the cam rotates,
contact force between the rib and the rollers turns the turret an
, a function
indexing. The follower angular displacement
, is defined by the
of the cam input angular displacement
dwellrisedwell modified sine curve [1], [4]

Fig. 3.

Block diagram of IVSMFC.

and effective approaches are the use of perturbation estimation

that integrated the estimated perturbation into the conventional
VSC structure [13], [14].
This paper presents an approach aiming on the load torque
estimation. The estimator is based on Golembos [15] derivative
estimator and is dedicated to the rapidly varying load torque
acting on the motor shaft. The estimated torque variation is
then fed forward to the speed control loop and constitutes
compensation against disturbances. The speed control loop
follows the philosophy of Cherns integral variable-structure
model-following control (IVSMFC) [16].
A digital-signal-processor (DSP)-based globoidal cam
indexing servo drive is implemented and the proposed algorithm is performed. The system is composed of a DSP-based
controller, a sinusoidal current-fed pulsewidth-modulation
(PWM) voltage-source inverter and a brushless dc (BLDC)
motor coupled to the cam through a 5 : 1 gear reducer. Results
of three control strategies are compared: open-loop control,
IVSMFC, and IVSMFC with load torque estimator. Experimental results show that by applying the load torque estimator,
the robustness of the IVSMFC can be improved and a better
motion characteristic of the cam indexing is achieved.

(1)

where is the rise angle of the cam and is the index angle of
the turret as shown in Figs. 1 and 2.
For generating an accurate indexing motion, the follower motion must be carefully synthesized in designing and machining,
so that globoidal index cams with acceptable precision and desired kinematic and dynamic characteristics can be obtained.

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Fig. 4.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002

Block diagram of the load torque estimator.

If the input shaft rotates with constant speed, the follower motion equations as well as the synthesizing can be simplified, as
follows:
the velocity

(2a)

the acceleration

(2b)

the jerk

(2c)

is the angular velocity of the cam,

, and
.
Actually, this is the assumption that motion curve synthesizing is based upon. Letting be the moment of inertia of the
turret, the output torque then will be

where

where
reference model as

with

the estimate of

. Assign a
(5a)
(5b)

is the input command of the system.

where
and introducing an inteDefining
gral element , the following state equations are obtained:
(6a)
(6b)

(2d)
Fig. 2 shows the follower motion characteristics. The solid
curve is the angular displacement while the dashed one is the
torque variation. It can be seen that, during rise angle, the cam
suffers from torque variation, the amplitude of which increases
with further loading.

(6c)
The control function

if
if
if
where

III. IVSMFC
Chern and Wu proposed an integral VSC (IVSC) approach
that comprises an integral part to achieve zero steady-state error
and a variable-structure (VS) controller for enhancing the robustness [11], [12]. The combination of a reference model that
specifies the design requirement results in an approach called
IVSMFC [16]. Fig. 3 shows the configuration of IVSMFC. The
states of the plant and the model are compared to constitute an
error dynamic system. By defining an integral state and applying VSC to the system, the control function is determined.
The dynamics of the BLDC motor utilized in this system
under velocity control can be described as

is piecewise linear of the form

is the sliding surface given by

(7)

is the integral gain.

in which is constant and
Design of such a system involves the choice of the control
to guarantee the existence of a sliding mode and
function
determination of the sliding surface such that the system has the
desired eigenvalues.
A. Choice of the Control Function
From (6) and (7),

(3a)
(3b)
is the angular velocity of the motor.
,
, and
where
represent the modeling constants depending on BLDCs paramis the control input of the motor.
is the distureters, and
. If
can be
bance relating to load torque ,
compensated, the dynamics will become
(4a)
(4b)

(8)
Let

where
and
are nominal values, and
and
are
the associated deviations due to parameter variations. Let
be decomposed into
, where
, called the

CHANG et al.: GLOBOIDAL CAM INDEXING SERVO DRIVE CONTROL

Fig. 5.

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Speed control diagram with load torque estimator and IVSMFC.

Fig. 6. Arrangement of the globoidal index cam servo drive system.

equivalent control, is given by

,
[5], [16], [18], that is,

under

(9)
In the sliding motion,

, one can obtain

(10)

Substitution of (10) into (9) yields

Fig. 7. Configuration of the BLDC motor drive.
TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE CONTROLLER

(11)
The function is used to eliminate the influence due to plant
parameter variations and disturbances so as to guarantee the existence of a sliding mode [5], [16], [18]. It is constructed as

where

(12)
To satisfy the existence and reachability of sliding motion
, given that
,
and
bounded, the coefficients
should meet the following conditions [16]:

(13a)
(13b)
(13c)

For a continuous system, it is proved to be more robust against

uncertainties when larger gains are employed. However, for digital implementation, a large gain brings out chattering as well as
is proportional to
possible instability [7]. As can be seen,
; the introduction of the load torque estimator into IVSMFC

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002

Fig. 8. Motor rotor velocity.

Fig. 9. Input shaft velocity.

will decrease the gain and improve the systems stability and
performance.
B. Determination of the Sliding Surface
Under ideal sliding motion, the system described by (6) can
be reduced to the following linear equations [5], [16], [18]:
(14a)
(14b)
of which the characteristic equation is
(15)

which is independent of the plant parameters and, thus, is robust

to parameter variations. Further, the eigenvalues of this system
can be set arbitrarily by choosing the values of and
.
IV. LOAD TORQUE ESTIMATOR BASED
DERIVATIVE ESTIMATION

ON

Fig. 4 shows the proposed load torque estimator. The structure

is based on a VS derivative estimator [15], [17], where is the
is the motor velocity, ,
torque component of current,
is the moment of inertia (subscript denotes nominal value),

CHANG et al.: GLOBOIDAL CAM INDEXING SERVO DRIVE CONTROL

Fig. 10.

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Dwell vibration.
TABLE II
STATISTIC ANALYSIS OF DWELL VIBRATION

,
is the equivalent torque constant (subscript denotes
is the load torque, and
is the estimated
nominal value),
load torque.
is used to ensure the accuracy and
In the scheme,
is the switching gain and is tuned according to the following
adaptive law:

then

(16)
From the block diagram, we have
(17)
if

is zero,

, (17) becomes
(18)

where the second equality follows the BLDC motors mechanical characteristic. The following theorem shows that under certain conditions the proposed scheme is asymptotically stable,
will converge to zero.
and
Theorem 1: Consider the structure as shown in Fig. 4.
is bounded, then, for any
Assume that
with the adaptive law (16),
will approach zero
given
asymptotically.
Proof: Choose a Lyapunov candidate as

Assuming that
is bounded, then there exists
such that
. That is,
will approach zero
constant
asymptotically.
However, because of the discontinuity of the switching ac. By applying a low-pass
tion, is not likely to be equal to
filter whose time constant is large enough to filter out the high
rate component and small enough as compared with the slow
can be obtained, which will
component, an average value
be used as the estimator output.
Fig. 5 shows the proposed speed control scheme with load
torque estimation. The outer loop is the IVSMFC speed control
scheme while the inner blocks institute the estimator.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002

V. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
To verify the performance of the proposed scheme, an
experimental prototype of the cam indexing servo system is
implemented. The globoidal index cam with a plate load is
driven by a BLDC motor through a gear reducer, as shown
in Fig. 6. The specification of the globoidal index cam is
80DS-08-120R-P-S3-5W. The gear reducer is 5 : 1. The plate
load is 0.05 kg m . Fig. 7 shows the hardware configuration
of the BLDC motor drive. The power amplifier stage amplifies
the PWM signal from the digital control stage via the power
MOSFET circuit to regulate the BLDC motor. The control
stage performing the control algorithm and interface data
execution is based on a 25-MHz microprocessor ADSP-21020.
The sampling period is 67 s.

VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

To examine the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme
and the globoidal cam indexing performance, the following
criteria are judged: input speed robustness and residual vibration
during dwell periods. From the characteristic equation (15),
by pole-assignment technique, sliding surface is determined.
,
, and
must be chosen to satisfy (13).
The gains
Simulations are processed to determine suitable parameters.
The resultant controllers are then implemented in the servo
system and the responses are measured and studied. The
parameters of the controller are listed in Table I. Experimental
results of three control procedures are presented and compared:
open-loop control, which is commonly adopted nowadays in
the cam-driving industry, IVSMFC, and IVSMFC with load
torque estimator.
Figs. 810 show the experimental responses. The dynamic
responses of the BLDC motor output velocity, the globoidal
input shaft velocity, and the dwell vibration under the three
control algorithms are compared. Fig. 8 shows that, when encountering large load disturbances, the robustness of IVSMFC
degrades. However, good speed regulation is achieved under
estimator compensation. Through a gear reducer, the input
shaft velocity in Fig. 9 indicates the same improvement. As
a consequence, as shown in Fig. 10, the dwell vibration is
minimized using the proposed technique. The improvements
can further be observed by statistical information. Table II
summarizes the standard deviation (SD), the standard error of
the mean (SE) of the dwell vibration under different strategies. These results well verify that IVSMFC with load torque
estimator increases the speed robustness to load torque variation and, as a result, effectively stabilize the globoidal cams
indexing characteristic and improve its indexing precision.

VII. CONCLUSION
This paper has proposed the design and implementation of
a DSP-based servo control drive for a Globoidal cam indexing

system. The servo control is based on IVSMFC with load torque

estimator. Procedures and stability analysis are well described.
Experimental results show that the proposed approach is robust
to load torque variations and can achieve accurate and stable
indexing.
REFERENCES
[1] F. Y. Chen, Mechanics and Design of Cam Mechanisms. New York:
Pergamon, 1982.
[2] H. A. Rothbart, Cams: Design, Dynamics, and Accuracy. New York:
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[3] D. Tesar and G. K. Mathew, The Dynamics Synthesis, Analysis, and Design of Modeled Cam Systems. Lexington, MA: Lexington, 1976.
[4] D. M. Tsay and B. J. Lin, Design and machining of globoidal index
cams, ASME J. Manufact. Sci. Eng., vol. 119, pp. 2129, 1997.
[5] V. I. Utkin, Variable structure systems with sliding mode: A survey,
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[6] J. J. E. Slotine and W. Li, Applied Nonlinear Control. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991.
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[8] T. L. Chern, C. W. Chuang, and R. L. Jiang, Design of discrete integral
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[10] J. J. E. Slotine, Robust control of robot manipulators, Int. J. Robot.
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[11] T. L. Chern and Y. C. Wu, Design of integral variable structure controller and application to electrohydraulic velocity servo systems, Proc.
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[13] X. Chen and T. Fukuda, Variable structure system theory based disturbance identification and its applications, Int. J. Control, vol. 68, pp.
373384, 1997.
[14] H. Elmali and N. Olgac, Sliding mode control with perturbation estimation: A new approach, Int. J. Control, vol. 56, pp. 923941, 1992.
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Geeng-Kwei Chang was born in Chiayi, Taiwan,

R.O.C., in 1970. He received the B.S. degree from
National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan,
R.O.C., in 1993, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung,
Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1995 and 2002, respectively, all
in electrical engineering.
He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, WuFeng Institute
of Technology, Chiayi, Taiwan, R.O.C. His interests
include variable-structure control, motor drive systems, microprocessor-based control systems, and electric machines.

CHANG et al.: GLOBOIDAL CAM INDEXING SERVO DRIVE CONTROL

Tzuen-Lih Chern was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan,

R.O.C, in 1958. He received the M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees from the Institute of Electronics, National
Chiao-Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C., in
1985 and 1992, respectively.
From February 1992 to January 1998, he was an
Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical
Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University,
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C., where he has been a
Professor since February 1998. His research interests
include variable-structure control, ac motor drives,
UPS, microprocessor-based control systems, and machine visions.

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Der-Min Tsay received the B.S. degree from Tatung

Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in
1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Clemson
University, Clemson, SC, in 1985 and 1988, respectively, all in mechanical engineering.
He is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical
and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, National Sun
Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C. His
research interests include design of high-speed positioning mechanisms, multi-axis machining, and computer-aided geometric design.