Laser beam pointing and stabilization by fractional-order PID control: Tuning rule and experiments

This paper studies the problem of high-precision positioning of laser beams by using a robust Fractional-Order Proportional-Integral-Derivative (FOPID) controller. The control problem addressed in laser beams aims to maintain the position of the laser beam on a Position Sensing Device (PSD) despite the effects of noise and active disturbances. The FOPID controller is well known for its simplicity with better tuning flexibility along with robustness to noise and output disturbance rejections. Thus, a control strategy based on FOPID to achieve the control objectives has been proposed. The FOPID gains and differentiation orders are optimally tuned in order to fulfill the robustness design specifications by solving a nonlinear optimization problem. A comparison to the conventional Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and robust PID is also provided from simulation and experiment set-up. Due to sensor noise, practical PID controllers that filter the position signal before taking the derivative have been also proposed. Experimental results show that the requirements are totally met for the laser beam platform to be stabilized.