The paper describes a nonlinear controller design technique applied to a servo drive in the presence of hard state constraints. The approach presented is based on nonlinear state-space transformation and adaptive backstepping. It allows us to impose hard constraints on the state variables directly and to achieve asymptotic tracking of any reference trajectory inside the constraints, despite unknown plant parameters. Two control schemes (with and without integral action) are derived, investigated and then compared. Several examples demonstrate the main features of the design procedure and prove that it may be applied in case of motion control problems in electric drive automation.

The paper describes a novel, simple servo drive position controller, using only knowledge about the structure of the nonlinear model and the constraints met by individual components of the model. The desired behaviour of the position and velocity signals is obtained by imposing a time-varying constraint on the signal aggregating information about position and velocity tracking errors. The method allows you to determine the maximum control (servo drive current) necessary to achieve the control goal under the existing initial conditions and the selected reference trajectory. The control is constrained and consists in appropriate reaction when the trajectory approaches the barrier, the shape of which is responsible for the imposed properties of the transient and quasisteady state tracking error. In addition to the derivation of the control, a discussion of its possible variants and basic properties is presented. Control with time-varying constraints has been introduced, which allows the control objectives to be met with limited conservatism of the imposed constraints. The influence of technical factors related to actual speed and position measurements was discussed and the operation of the real drive on a laboratory stand was presented.