This paper investigates the role of active dancers in attenuation of web tension disturbances in a web process line. A general structure of the active dancer is considered; an input/output model is developed for analysis and controller design. Three types of control designs were investigated for the active dancer: proportional-integral-derivative controller, internal model based controller, and linear quadratic optimal controller. An open-architecture experimental platform is developed for conducting real-time control experiments using the active dancer system. Data collected from an extensive set of experiments using the three control designs validate the usefulness of the active dancers in a web process line. We present a representative sample of the experimental data in this paper.Mechanical and Aerospace Engineerin
