This paper studies a position feedback control strategy for controlling a higher order drifting oscillator which could be used in modelling vibro-impact drilling. Special attention is given to two control issues, eliminating bistability and suppressing chaos, which may cause inefficient and unstable drilling. Numerical continuation methods implemented via the continuation platform COCO are adopted to investigate the dynamical response of the system. Our analyses show that the proposed controller is capable of eliminating coexisting attractors and mitigating chaotic behaviour of the system, providing that its feedback control gain is chosen properly. Our investigations also reveal that, when the slider's property modelling the drilled formation changes, the rate of penetration for the controlled drilling can be significantly improved.
Keywords: bistability; chaos control; position feedback control; progression optimization; vibro-impact drilling.