Tension and Speed Regulation of Axially Moving Materials

In this paper, the tension and speed of an axially moving material system are regulated using control torques applied to rollers at each end of a controlled span. Given a distributed parameter model, Lyapunov-type arguments produce a model-based boundary control law that exponentially stabilizes the material tension and speed at the desired setpoints. Dynamic simulation results compare the tension and speed setpoint regulation provided by the proposed control strategy with standard PID approaches.