Design and Analysis of Discrete-Time Repetitive Control for Scanning Probe Microscopes

This paper studies repetitive control (RC) with linear phase lead compensation to precisely track periodic trajectories in piezo-based scanning probe microscopes (SPMs). Quite often, the lateral scanning motion in SPMs during imaging or nanofabrication is periodic. Dynamic and hysteresis effects in the piezoactuator cause significant tracking error. To minimize the tracking error, commercial SPMs commonly use proportional-integral-derivative (PID) feedback controllers; however, the residual error of PID control can be excessively large, especially at high scan rates. In addition, the error repeats from one operating cycle to the next. To account for the periodic tracking error, a discrete-time RC is designed, analyzed, and implemented on an atomic force microscope (AFM). The advantages of RC include straightforward digital implementation and it can be plugged into an existing feedback control loop, such as PID, to enhance performance. The proposed RC incorporates two phase lead compensators to ensure robustness and minimize the steady-state tracking error. Simulation and experimental results from an AFM system compare the performance among (1) PID, (2) standard RC, and (3) the modified RC with phase lead compensation. The results show that the latter reduces the steady-state tracking error to less than 2% at 25 Hz scan rate, an over 80% improvement compared with PID control.