Control System Design for High-Speed Low-Tension Tape Transport

This paper describes the entire process of control system design for a prototype high-speed, low-tension tape transport system. The speed and tension of the tape are regulated by controlling the relative displacement of the supply and take-up reels. The system is slowly time varying from changing reel packs, and is difficult to model because the spring constant of the tape depends on the operating speed and tension due to air entrainment in the take-up reel. In this paper, an iterative multi-input multi-output controller design approach is presented where a low performance controller is first designed to enable system identification around the desired operating speed and tension of the transport. The frequency response data is then used to design a fast settling controller. An adaptive ripple cancellation scheme for better tension regulation is demonstrated. Failure detection mechanisms and recovery algorithms that reduce the probability of tape damage are described.