Two-degree-of-freedom robust temperature control of peltier device based on heat disturbance observer

Abstract

Recently, the Peltier device has been attracting attention as a haptic device that can transfer heat, because it has relatively fast response characteristics among thermal devices. To transmit the thermal sensation, temperature control is considered to be important. However, it is difficult to design a controller because of factors such as parameter variations, nonlinear characteristics of the device, and heat that flows from an external object. Moreover, it is preferable that the tracking performance and disturbance suppression characteristics be designed independently. To address these factors, this paper proposes a heat disturbance observer, which is constructed by using the disturbance observer commonly used in the field of motion control. When the observer is used, the thermal system becomes robust to the above-mentioned factors. In addition, it is possible to design the tracking performance independent of the disturbance suppression characteristics. The validity of the proposal is confirmed by experimental results. © 2011 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.