Friction Control in Positioning by AE Detection

Masatake SHIRAISHI* and Hideyasu SUMIYA**

Abstract
Sensing of friction for fine positioning control by using a sensor fusion via the neural network to process
data from AE (acoustic emission) sensors and a disturbance control is described. The proposed feed forward
compensation is a useful method in positioning control when disturbances applied to the system are to be
estimated. Experimental results show the effectiveness of both techniques in friction sensing and fine
positioning control. Both methods may also be applicable, without modification, to nm-scale positioning.
Key words: friction detection, sensor fusion, AE sensor, disturbance control

1. Introduction a neural network, and/or GMDH (Group Method of Data

There has been growing interest in recent years in the
possible upgrading of fine positioning systems used in many
apparatuses through the use of sensing and control techniques.
In particular, the detection of disturbances such as friction,
temperature change, changes in system parameters, etc., is of
great importance to more accurate positioning [3]. The reason
why this requirement is strongly urged is that it is not always
necessary to apply difficult control theories such as an H∞, a
sliding mode control, etc., when the system conditions are
properly detected by using adequate sensors. Sensor fusion is an
integrated sensing strategy designed to improve the performance
and reliability of manufacturing process and mechatronic sys-
tems monitoring by utilizing various sensor outputs [1-2].
In this paper, sensor fusion is first outlined and applied
to the detection of friction by using AE sensors in a single-axis
positioning system. Processing of the signal from each AE
sensor is of great importance to the better estimation of
positioning conditions and the estimation accuracy strictly
depends on the data processing technique to the sensor outputs.
In our approach, features are extracted from four processed
signals. Secondly, a disturbance compensator which operates by
detecting friction is designed and implemented. Experimental
results show a satisfactory accuracy in positioning, of the order
of 1.0 μm
2. Sensor Fusion
2.1 Concept
A schematic arrangement of a sensor fusion is shown in Fig.
1. Multiple sensors are used in combination with decision
making. Positioning conditions, such as temperature changes
and friction, are detected by several sensors, and their outputs
are then processed to allow a better interpretation of the
conditions. Decision-making by using, for example, fuzzy logic,
Handling), plays an important role in determining or esti
-mating the phenomena which are occurring. Each type of deci-
sion making process has several advantages and disadvantages.
We choose the neural network for decision making on feature ex
-traction in this study because of its advantages in terms of flex-
ibility rather than other methods.
2.2 .Application to fine positioning
In implementing a fine positioning control, there are basical-
ly two problems to be discussed: first is the selection of ade
quate sensor(s) including its (their) location, and second is
to determine the robust control strategy even in the pres
-ence of disturbances. Hence ,to avoid both difficulties, a
sensor fusion technique was applied in this study. Figure 2(a)
illustrates the concept of a sensor-based positioning system.
Sensors may be of either of two types: external monitoring and
internal monitoring. Specifically, sensors of the former type
detect pressure changes, movements of the surrounding air,
changes in the surrounding temperature, and vibrations
externally applied to the system. Sensors of the latter type detect
disturbances such as friction, wear due to sliding motion,
changes in the system temperature itself, system-internal
vibration, and other system parameter changes such as a time-
constant and system gain. Detecting such disturbances is crucial
to a practical fine positioning system. No current sensors are
adequate to detect movements of the surrounding air, friction
and system parameter changes. If AE sensors can successfully
be applied to such tasks, the dynamics of the disturbances can
be estimated in an on-line fashion, thus generating precise
control. The most difficult step in implementing a required
control is to make an accurate model of the positioning system.
There is no general solution to this problem. Therefore, to cover
the inconvenience of this problem, we must concentrate on

Fig.1 General structure of sensor fusion

*Emeritus Professor, Ibaraki University

**Research Associate, Ibaraki University
***Corresponding author, same to *
(1-2-403, Katsuta-chuou, Hitachinakashi, Ibaraki,
312-0045, Japan, Tel & Fax: 029-274-1201,
E-mail: masatake@mx.ibaraki.ac.jp)

1
 (a) Two groups of sensors (b) Specific items to be measured
Fig.2 Concept of sensor-based positioning system

the determination of control strategy or algorithm on the basis of
sensor information.
3. Friction Detection and Control Design
A number of experiments were conducted using a single-
axis slide table and a dc motor with a reduction gear as shown in
Fig. 3. A laser sensor with a measurement resolution of 0.1μm
was used at the end of the positioning stage to feed back the
position. According to the preliminary experiments, the total
positioning accuracy was found to be approximately of the order
of several micrometers in the presence of friction. The slide was
500-mm long, and three AE sensors were attached to the side of
the slide guide, at 100 mm, 300 mm, and 450 mm from the start
point, respectively. The aim is to see the sliding condition of the
stage and to determine the possibility of detecting friction in an
on-line fashion. To make sure of this detection, high quality ma-
chine oil was placed on the ball screw slide between
250 mm to 350 mm, and the oil was removed from the rest of
the slide by using benzine. Therefore, there are two slide
surfaces with different friction qualities: a higher friction
surface without oil and a smoother surface with oil.
The raw signals from three sensors were amplified and
passed through filters to eliminate some noises. They were digi-
tized at a sampling rate of 30 kHz, then preprocessed to
produce four quantitative statistical measures: raw, mean, rms,
(root mean square) and variance signals. The processed
data from each AE sensor were fed to the neural network
for decision making. The network was trained using 12
pattern pairs to determine which input patterns to use training
the estimation models. After a number of training sessions,
some pattern pairs were isolated from the training set be-
cause they had a destructive influence on the network’s
learning ability in terms of “convergence”, within the
specified tolerance of 2%. During the training phase, vari
-ations in the depth of the hidden layer, combinations an d

Fig.3 Single axis positioning system

Fig.4 Structure of a neural network

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dimension of features, initial weights, and thresholds were
evaluated so that their overall effects on network convergence
and performance could be determined. The resulting neural
network had twelve inputs, six hidden layers, and two outputs
(higher friction surface and smoother friction surface), as
illustrated in Fig. 4.
Strictly speaking, to improve the measurement accuracy, we
need a number of experiments by changing the speed
of the slide, the load on the stage and travel distance.
Because of the limitation of the travel length and the oil coa-
ting, however, the experiments were performed within the
speed range of 5.0 cm/sec to 50 cm/sec.
Figure 5 shows a typical trace of the transition from the
smoother slide surface to the higher friction slide surface. A step
slide can clearly be seen in the trace as the transition from the
smoother to the higher friction surface takes place. It is not easy
to show that this phenomenon was caused by the effect of
friction alone. It is obviously, however, mainly due to friction.
This friction-driven dynamic behavior may be represented as a
first-order transfer function Gf(s). Table 1 compares the outputs
from the AE sensors adjacent to the higher friction slide surface
and the smoother slide surface. In the training phase, 102 sets of
data were used and the representative data are used from the
table. These data were evaluated at slide positions of 100 mm,
300 mm and 450 mm. Output values from the higher friction
slide surface are always greater than those from the smoother
slide surface, as shown in the table. Also it is found from Fig. 5
that the friction is gradually increasing between the two surfaces.
Judging from only this result, this friction process may be
approximated by the first-order transfer function with the
adequate time constant depending on the friction conditions.
The time constant may be estimated between 1.2 to 2.8 seconds.
Once the friction is measured in an on-line fashion, a
feedforward control can be applied to eliminate the effects of
friction. Figure 6 is a block diagram of the designed control
system, where G1(s) and G2(s) denote the dynamics of the
controller and of the servo system, respectively. G2(s) is
approximated by a first-order transfer function. “s” denotes the
Laplace transformation. Let us define the transfer functions of
compensation and of friction as GC(s) and GM(s), respectively.
From figure 6, in order to eliminate the effect of friction, the
following relation must be satisfied between the input F and the
output
 0 ( s) (1)
= 1 − GC ( s )GM ( s )G2 ( s ) = 0
F ( s)
This equation implies that the effect of the disturbance input F
should not appear to the output of the positioning system. Hence
by rearranging the equation (1), the following dynamics
required for compensation of reducing the effect of friction is
obtained.
(2)
Fig.5 Typical trace of the slide
Fig.6 Block diagram of the positioning
control system
where Tf, T2 are time constants and Kf, K2 denote scalar
constants. The controller was designed by using PI control mode
(P: proportional, and I: integral).
4. Experimental Results and Discussion
In most cases the drive system has a reduction gear, and the
roller is driven indirectly by a servomotor as indicated in Fig. 3.
Even if they are high-precision, roller bearings have a slight
friction, and thus have an effect on a positioning condition. In
very slow motion, the machine initially moves quickly, and then
slows down or even stops under certain conditions, because the
rigidity of the slide mechanism is insufficient so far as fine
positioning is concerned. This is the so called stick-slip
phenomenon, which seriously effects on a fine positioning
system.
Friction has a negative effect on the final position, and thus
makes a contribution in the form of a steady-state error. To
evaluate our methods, experiments with several different
conditions of the slide surface were conducted. Parameters used
in the control system were experimentally obtained through
measuring its response to a stepwise input signal. Figure 7
shows the comparison of the step response at the friction slide
surface with and without feed forward control. It can be seen
that the control system compensates well for friction, within an
accuracy of 1.0 μm. As described in introduction, there is no
sensor that can detect the behavior of the friction directly. Under
such a condition, the proposed technique is a challenging
approach to estimate the friction, although three AE sensors are
applied. A quasi-sensor fusion which was proposed by one of
the authors will be also applicable to the detection of friction.
One of the advantages of this method is to use single sensor
through multi-data processing techniques via a neural network.
However, the accuracy of the estimation is more serious when
compared with a general sensor fusion method using multi-
sensors. Also the accuracy is strictly depend on the selection of
the adequate sensor.
Table 1 Comparison of the output signals
from the sensors
Smoother Higher friction
slide surface (v) slide surface (v)
0.12 0.34
0.10 0.47
0.21 0.39
0.18 0.52
0.26 0.44
0.30 0.63
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 Fig. 7 Control results
5. Conclusion
This paper describes an investigation of the sensor fusion
approach and of disturbance control for estimating and
controlling the effect of frictions on a fine positioning control
system. Sensing results show that the system was able to
effectively distinguish between a higher friction slide surface
and a smoother friction slide surface. Disturbance control on the
basis of on-line friction measurements compensated for the
effects of friction before this disturbance was introduced into the
main control system. Although the accuracy of positioning in
the experiments was of the order of 1.0 μm, the proposed
method is applicable, without modification of the technique, to
nm-scale positioning. The proposed technique is a challenging
approach to reduce frictions applied to the positioning system,
and it may be applicable to estimate other disturbances such as
dynamics parameters including time constant and system gain.
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