MMT Servo Development Timeline
Early Testing Two Track Servo Development Begins xPC Target Operational xPC Development Part I xPC Development Part II xPC Development Part III xPC and VxWorks Development Part I xPC and VxWorks Development Part II xPC and VxWorks Development Part III xPC and VxWorks Development Part IV xPC and VxWorks Development Part V
2001 - 2003 2003 - 2004 2004 2004 - 2005 2005 - 2006 2006 - 2007 2007 2007 2007 - 2008 2008 Summer 2008
Using a DSA, accelerometers, and AT-bus ARCS board to survey resonances on the elevation structure. Many attempts to get good performance by on-line tuning of LM628 parameters. Ed Bell and Keith Powell come onboard to work on controller development. Underconstrained elevation motor mounts investigated. Hardware and drivers are developed for collection of digital encoder outputs and open-loop testing of elevation begins. First simulation model and controller developed and tested. Ed Bell's design track halted. Powell controller becomes cascaded-PID and first simulation/closed-loop verification data collected. January 2006: xPC controller design archived for deployment support. Hub bracing wires installed and incident with bent spider arms occurs. Bandaids attempted on LM628 servo. Dec 2006: first evidence new notch filters, particularly 20Hz, are needed surfaces. 20Hz oscillation confirmed with xPC controller. New notch filters designed and tested. Newer tuning parameters also tested. New servo bridge hardware built. Verification of signal integrity in bridge and DAC hardware. xPC development continues with variable Ki gain in position loop. First attempts at testing the VxWorks implementation. Luenberger Observer and disturbance decoupling introduced and tested with xPC Target. Work on improving model fit and servo tuning with xPC begins. Limited amount of sky data with LM628, xPC, and new VxWorks implementation collected. Various filters in disturbance decoupling path are tested with xPC Target. Dec. 2007: Deployment testing of VxWorks controller. Open loop testing and data analysis continues with xPC target for improvement of design simulations for servo optimization. System Identification Toolbox and other tools used for iteration of elevation model. First (correct) model simulation of 2.8Hz gain peaking. Powell begins work on gain optimization with improved model. Hardware migrates from xPC to mount computer and testing continues to discover differences between deployed VxWorks version and xPC test version. 65Hz oscillation present on VxWorks controller, not on xPC version. Cable hang-up on East tape head incident occurs. Realignment of head and verification of 65Hz mode confirmed with xPC Target running on mount hardware. Testing in 2005/6 succeeded on both tape heads with xPC, so East head mode is new. Windup/wobble/runoff issues with VxWorks controller running latest controller iteration not currently detected in xPC Target testing.