Velocity Controller Tuning Guide
The Phidget Control Panel on Windows features a built-in tuning application for Velocity Controllers. This application makes it easy to experimentally determine the best control parameters for your system.
Once tuning is complete, you can save the parameters to a file for later use with the Phidget Control Panel or set the values directly in your program's attachment handler.
Motion Profiling
Trapezoidal motion profiling combined with a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is used in order to accurately track velocity. This allows for advanced control and improved repeatability of your system.
How It Works
Trapezoidal motion profiling is named for the trapezoidal shape of the Velocity-Time graph (shown below in grey and orange).
Unlike traditional PID loops where a target is set and the controller approaches (often aggressively), Phidget velocity controllers will intelligently plot a series of target velocities between the current and desired velocity. This is shown as the Expected Velocity in the graph above. The controller will follow the user-specified acceleration plot these points. A PID loop is then employed to precisely follow this trajectory, ensuring smooth and controlled motion.
