Control design of an electromechanical gearbox actuator

This paper deals with the control design of an electromechanical shift actuator. First, to provide an environment where the controllers can be tuned and compared, a nonlinear model has been developed, then a linear state-space representation of the system has been derived. Besides tracking of a reference signal with high accuracy, the control design must consider the limitations of a typical, commercial actuator control unit, in particular real-time applicability. To achieve the controlling aims, a symmetric, optimum based, cascaded PID, a Linear Quadratic Regulator, a Linear Quadratic Gaussian controller, and a Model Predictive Controller have been developed. Three of the four developed methods can meet the given requirements. However, there are significant differences regarding the run-time of the algorithms.