Estimation of Solid Friction in Mechanical Systems

This paper describes the estimation of the solid friction in mechanical systems by using the extended Kalman filtering techniques. We proposed two stochastic model for the estimation. The one is the 'parametric model' which represents the friction characteristics by an exponential function with unknown parameters. The other is the 'blind model' which does not assume an explicit model but regard the effect of the friction as an unknown input to a known dynamic system. For both models, we give estimation algorithms to generate the filtered estimate and the smoothed estimate with a fixed lag. The filtered estimate can be generated on-line for compensating the solid friction in mechanical systems. Although on-line applications are impossible, the smoothed estimate is more accurate and can be used to grasp precise friction characteristics. Simulation and experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.