Simulation and Experimentation of a Precise Nonlinear Tracking Control Algorithm for a Rotary Servo-Hydraulic System With Minimum Sensors

The dynamics of hydraulic systems involves slow and fast modes. These modes are associated with the mechanical components and those involving fluid flow, respectively. As such, controllers for electro-hydraulic servo systems (EHSS) can be designed and analyzed using singular perturbation theory. In this paper, a singular perturbation control (SPC) algorithm is proposed and investigated on a rotary EHSS modeled based on a two-time-scale behavior of the system. For modeling, the components of the hydraulic system, specifically the nonlinear model of the orifice in servo valve, are modeled. A mathematical modeling and nonlinear control analysis that validated by experiment is presented. The controlled system with the SPC algorithm tracks a fairly smooth trajectory with very small error. As well, the control algorithm is successfully verified by experiment as the main contribution of the paper. In addition, this is robust to variations in the hydraulic fluid bulk modulus such that only its nominal value is sufficient. Furthermore, the proposed control design will not require derivatives of the control pressures and any output acceleration feedback. Hence, it can be implemented easier in the real system setup. The controller design approach addresses the nonlinearities of the rotary EHSS. The parameters of the real system model are experimentally identified using the continuous recursive least square method.