Feedforward Plus Feedback Control of an Electro-Hydraulic Valve System Using a Proportional Control Valve

• Main Authors: Young-Rae Ko, Tae-Hyoung Kim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Actuators
• Subjects: asymmetric hysteresis; electro-hydraulic valve system; inverse generalized Prandtl–Ishlinskii model; proportional control valve; robust proportional-integral-derivative control
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0825/9/2/45

The output feedback signal of the electro-hydraulic valve system (EHVS) affects the activation of its right or left envelope function; thus, even weak measurement noise can cause high-frequency switching between the two envelope functions, leading to chattering in the control input. Consequently, feedforward and feedback controllers in a cascaded configuration generate undesirable chattering in the output signal. We propose a practical and reliable control approach for an EHVS actuated by a proportional control valve. The proposed controller has a parallel structure comprising an inverse generalized Prandtl–Ishlinskii (P–I) model-based feedforward controller, with both hydraulic dead-zone and flow saturation limits, for compensating asymmetric hysteretic behavior. Further, the proposed controller comprises a robust proportional-integral-derivative (PID) feedback controller for achieving robustness against disturbances and noises. The proposed parallel structure is independent of the output feedback of the EHVS. Moreover, the proposed robust PID feedback controller guarantees EHVS stability by precisely selecting the cutoff frequency for the sensitivity and complementary sensitivity functions based on the amplitude spectrum of the inverse-model-based feedforward compensation error. The results verify the high reliability of the proposed EHVS control scheme for the precise control of an EHVS actuated by a proportional control valve in practice.