Control of Tension and Line Speed in Fabric Finishing

A procedure is presented for tension and line speed control in fabric finishing. The dynamics of the tension and line speed is mathematically modeled, exhibiting nonlinear behavior. Based on the nonlinear model, to compensate for modeling uncertainties and unknown disturbances, sliding mode control is adopted because of its robustness and ability to handle nonlinear systems. The proposed approach is implemented for computer simulation and experiment. The results show consistency in performance, and demonstrate that sliding mode control can efficiently accomplish tension and line speed control.