Dynamic Modeling of a Belt Driven Electromechanical XY Plotter Cutter

Current industrial XY plotter cutters that use a belt driven gantry for the X motion and media feed for the Y motion do not perform adequately in high precision applications. Mathematical models for these plotter cutters are not publicly available and thus the parameters critical to cut quality are not well understood. This paper develops a simple dynamic, electromechanical model for the gantry arm and media feed using first principles and a nonlinear friction model. A rectangle, star, and oval are simulated using both a detuned and tuned controller and compared to experimental results. The effectiveness of the model is demonstrated with good agreement between theoretical and experimental results for both controllers.