Driving machine

tool evolution
From speeds of thousands of rpms with micron positioning to Are you up to speed on all the
changes in digital ac drives and the lat-
adaptive control, ac drives continue to push machine tool est advances they have brought to ma-
chine tools? Some may have escaped
notice as the rapid pace of develop-
capabilities forward. ment enables designers to leap over
the incremental improvements of the
Richard Quickel past.
Today's machine tools rely primar-
ily on two distinct classes of ac drives;
GE Fanuc Automation North America Inc.
feed drives (or servos) and spindle
drives.
The latest servos offer:
• Four quadrant operation
• Current loop bandwidth of 5,000
rad/sec or more
• Velocity loop bandwidth of 600
rad/sec or more
• Smooth torque (no ripple) even at
low speeds
• High static and dynamic stiffness
in closed position loops
The latest spindle drives offer:
• Maximum speeds to 40,000 rpm,
controllable to zero rpm in contour-
ing mode
• Orientation of the cutting tool
with a four-factor increase in rigidity
• Recovery from load changes 33%
faster than earlier designs

With the latest developments in ac drives, be they servos or spindle

drives, designers are developing machine tools that deliver faster,
more precise motions than ever before.

PTdesign ● www.ptdesign.com ● July 1999 ● 19

The digital age Ac advances
Such improvements are the result
Four-quadrant operation, current-loop bandwidths to 5,000 rad/sec, and
of the latest developments in digital
control, including feed forward con- other capabilities of digital ac drives would not be possible if it weren't for the
trol, friction compensation, absolute development of SCRs in the 1960's. They made the first electric dc drives
feedback, and adaptive control. practical. Then in the 1970's, transistor improvements and pulse-width
Feed forward - that is, feeding the
position command into the velocity modulation technology produced the first high-performance dc electric drives.
loop - provides position loop gain In the 1980's, electronic advances in literally all component areas made it
control while moving. (Feed forward possible to combine ac drives with three-phase ac motors. After developments
increases the apparent gain after a in control techniques enabled balanced three-phase current operation, ac
valid command to move. It does not
affect stability at standstill.) By in- drives rivaled dc versions in performance.
creasing the feed forward gain, you Today's ac motors have no commutation limits. Compared to dc motors, this
can reduce following error (lag), gives them a wider operating zone with higher acceleration torques and more
which otherwise would be large dur-
useful torque at high speeds. With a correspondingly lower inertia, because they
ing high-speed machining. Lag is di-
rectly proportional to the gain and in- are typically 20% smaller than dc versions, they have faster acceleration and
versely proportional to the feedrate. deceleration. Most ac drives run directly off a 230-V, three-phase ac supply,
So, it's possible to have near infinite eliminating special transformers. The net result is performance equivalent to or
gain with zero lag. Increasing feed for-
ward reduces the following error, let- better than a dc system and increased drive reliability.
ting machine tools cut truer circles
and, with look ahead and feedrate motors. Otherwise, once movement feeds, and initiate alarms for condi-
change control, cut sharper corners starts, any overtravel in the axis can re- tions such as a broken tool.
with minimal shock to the machine. sult in oscillation. Servos are ideal for Precise digital control reduces
Friction compensation corrects controlling torque buildup and pre- stresses to the machine without sacri-
for poor performance from compo- venting such overshoot. ficing response. Linear acceleration
nents, such as sticky slides. Friction, The machine may also have a reso- and deceleration control grants the
servo delay, and backlash can cause nance at a low enough frequency to fastest ramps for a given torque,
flats or other imperfections at the cause vibrations during operation. A reaching speed in 30 msec or less with
quadrant points where the servo must notch filter will suppress a fixed reso- a low inertia motor. Bell curve accel-
reverse direction. Compensation nance. Other feedback functions sup- eration imparts a softer start when a
functions correct these conditions. press such sources of vibration as com- machine can't tolerate faster speed
All machines have some friction. pliance in the lead screw. Plus, the changes.
The few with a lot require high torque drive can monitor cutting loads and In tapping, the feed amount of the
z-axis for one rotation of the spindle
should equal the pitch of the tap. Pre-
By any other name . . . cise digital control and accurate feed-
Designations and terminology associated with commercial ac drives can back controls the spindle rotation and
be confusing. Some labels are synonymous, such as sinusoidal z-axis feed so that they are always syn-
synchronous ac or permanent magnet ac. Both apply to a motor with chronous. This permits rigid tapping
at speeds up to 4,000 rpm.
permanent magnets built into the rotor. The magnets supply the field flux, Digital control and improved feed-
which interacts with a flux produced by a three-phase stator winding and a back techniques let the same spindle
three-phase sine wave current for torque generation. controller and motor handle contour-
Brushless dc or electrically commutated dc (ECM) usually refers to
ing. Therefore, axis resolutions can
reach 0.001 degree, at spindle speeds
motors that are similar to synchronous but with a pulsed dc current in the to 200 rpm for contouring and 25,000
form of a trapezoid. Asynchronous ac motors are the ac squirrel-cage rpm for velocity control.
induction types. They usually incorporate special winding and stator slot Absolute position feedback,
which is in wide use in the automotive
techniques for reduced losses and better performance.
industry, eliminates machine re-refer-
Most machine-tool servo applications use sinusoidal synchronous ac motors encing following a power loss. This
because they offer smooth operation at low speed. Spindle applications use reduces downtime.
asynchronous ac motors because they are better at high speeds. Once referenced, the absolute en-
coder tracks all motion even during
An asynchronous ac motor control usually provides constant torque up to power off. On power up, the control
base speed. Then it uses flux-vector techniques, producing an effect similar reads the machine position and up-
to field weakening in a dc motor, for constant horsepower to maximum dates the position registers. Absolute
speed. This speed may be as much as 30 times base speed.
encoders typically have a range of up
to 5,000 inches.

20 ● PTdesign ● www.ptdesign.com ● July 1999

 Adaptive control may finally have compliance from the motor shaft and profiles, store programs, and execute
arrived with digital drives. Talked coupling. But this effect is of little help diagnostic routines. With servo am-
about since the 1950's, it's being im- in a practical sense because resonance plifiers, on the other hand, CNCs
plemented in high-speed digital sys- frequency varies with each applica- close the loops, producing digital
tems as self-tuning or reference-type tion. An adjustable filter, however, PWM signals that serve as amplifier
control. will track and cancel it. inputs.
Self-tuning calculates system pa- As desirable as these results are, Each approach has advantages and
rameters and adjusts the control to ac- though, the real payoff is in the system disadvantages. For mult-axis machine
commodate them. Reference control, approach to optimize machine perfor- tool applications, the servo amplifier
on the other hand, compares the ac- mance and overcome limitations. This system is usually best. ●
tual system response, such as cutting has led to the 90's advant of an all dig-
torque, to a reference model and ad- ital integrated system.
justs the system to respond like the Richard Quickel is senior staff application engineer
model. Making the connection at GE Fanuc Automation North America Inc.,
Adaptive control may be as simple One problem often encountered Charlottesville, Va.
as a regulator that tunes itself to a new with digital systems, is that unlike ana-
motor or as complex as a control algo- log systems, there is no single digital
rithm dynamically responding to load standard. Thus, in most commercial
disturbances. The techniques are systems, velocity and current loops are Next step. . .
math intensive but are possible be- digital, while command input is a ±10 © Did you find this article interesting?
cause of today's high-speed micropro- Vdc analog signal. Some drives offer a
cessors. digital input option, as it's required to © For more information on drives, visit
One example is a form of reference- interface with CNC drives, but these our website at www.ptdesign.com.
type adaptive control that accommo- are often proprietary. © For information from G. E. Fanuc
dates fluctuations in machining condi- So drives go from one extreme, in- North America Inc.,or call
tions. During operation, the drive is telligent, to the other, servo amplifier.
continually tuned to reflect changes. Intelligent drives operate from a posi- (800) 568-7324.
When dealing with resonances, al- tion command and close the position,
most all systems are self-compensat- velocity, and current loops in the
ing at some velocity and torque due to servo drive. Some also generate more

PTdesign ● www.ptdesign.com ● July 1999 ● 21