Development and verification of advanced control algorithms for ultra-fast motion

Nowadays, microchips and semiconductors that belongs to the daily routine are becoming smaller and faster to adapt to the increasing requirements. To produce semiconductors, multiple steps in a vacuum chamber are necessary, therefore in order to accelerate the processes and saving time, the vacuum valves necessitate to be as quick though precise as possible. This means, that the requirements for motion control are increasing, e.g. in term of faster movements, faster settling times and more precise position control. The aim of this dissertation is to simulate, tune and test different control algorithms to meet the semiconductors industries demands. However, a good control algorithms is not only the essential part to achieve excellent performance, but also a trajectory planner is crucial. For that reasons, different types of Online Trajectory Generator (OTG) are exploited and integrated into the controller routine. A simulation environment in Matlab & Simulink is created ad hoc to simulate the response of the valve and to tune the control gains. Then, the algorithms are tested with a real butterfly valve, which was already modified for fast movements in terms of hardware. Lastly, among all the different control structures tested, the ones that show the most outstanding results are also tested by integrating them with an existent pressure control, which based on the requested pressure by the user, it computes the reference position of the valve. In this way, the reference position is a continuous moving profile so that the full potential of the real butterfly valve is exploited.