Fractional-Order PII1/2DD1/2 Control: Theoretical Aspects and Application to a Mechatronic Axis

Fractional Calculus is usually applied to control systems by means of the well-known PIλDµ scheme, which adopts integral and derivative components of non-integer orders λ and µ. An alternative approach is to add equally distributed fractional-order terms to the PID scheme instead of replacing the integer-order terms (Distributed Order PID, DOPID). This work analyzes the properties of the DOPID scheme with five terms, that is the PII1/2DD1/2 (the half-integral and the half-derivative components are added to the classical PID). The frequency domain responses of the PID, PIλDµ and PII1/2DD1/2 controllers are compared, then stability features of the PII1/2DD1/2 controller are discussed. A Bode plot-based tuning method for the PII1/2DD1/2 controller is proposed and then applied to the position control of a mechatronic axis. The closed-loop behaviours of PID and PII1/2DD1/2 are compared by simulation and by experimental tests. The results show that the PII1/2DD1/2 scheme with the proposed tuning criterium allows remarkable reduction in the position error with respect to the PID, with a similar control effort and maximum torque. For the considered mechatronic axis and trapezoidal speed law, the reduction in maximum tracking error is −71% and the reduction in mean tracking error is −77%, in correspondence to a limited increase in maximum torque (+5%) and in control effort (+4%).