Laser machining apparatus with feed forward and feedback control

A laser machining apparatus comprising:

• a laser oscillator;
• a power supply unit for supplying excitation power to said laser oscillator, said power supply unit controlling, in response to a control input, at least one of:
• a frequency of said laser oscillator, a duty ratio of said laser oscillator, and a power output of said laser oscillator;
• a command value setting unit for outputting a command value including said power output of said laser oscillator and at least one of:
• said frequency of said laser oscillator and said duty ratio of said laser oscillator;
• a power sensor for measuring said power output from said laser oscillator to provide a power measurement value;
• a feedback control unit for computing a first operation rate from a power command value set in said command value setting unit and said power measurement value;
• a feed forward control unit comprising:
• a laser oscillator characteristics describing unit that describes a laser oscillator characteristics function having, as a parameter, at least one of said frequency and said duty ratio, and
• a peak current computing section computing, as a second operation rate, a peak current in response to said command value and said laser oscillator characteristics function;
• a feed forward correcting unit for correcting said feed forward control unit based on actual characteristics of said laser oscillator;
• and
• a computing unit computing said control input based on said first operation rate and said second operation rate.