Measuring the Plant
The manual tuning process is started by first measuring the Plant.
To get started:
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Put drive in Torque Mode.
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Select the Manual tuning mode.
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Set Measurement to Plant and the Excitation Point to 1-Current.
Note: Closed Loop can only be taken in Position or Velocity mode.
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Set Excitation Type to PRB, the Configuration Mode to 0-User Defined, and the Current to a value that is roughly twice the current needed to overcome friction for better low-frequency measurements.
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Press the Take Measurement button.
The view below shows the results of a measurement taken with all the control loop parameters zeroed out except the Velocity Loop Proportional Gain to bring the Open Loop in unity with the Plant. If the mouse is hovered over the plots, or plot buttons, the individual plots are highlighted. Reviewing the plots it is observed that the Plant and Open Loop are the same, the Closed Loop is zero until it is affected by the Open Loop resonances, and the Controller and Filters are all zero across the plots - both gain and phase.
Manual tuning can be utilized to tune from scratch as shown here, or to further optimize an existing set of tuned parameters. Achieving the desired system performance is the primary goal, which usually means achieving a certain bandwidth while maintaining system stability.
