The automation of hydraulic mobile machinery, such as excavators, requires high performance control solutions. In hydraulics, this means fast and accurate force, velocity and position control of hydraulic cylinder. Especially the force control is known to be difficult with traditional servo valves. Fast digital hydraulic valves together with modern control solutions can overcome this problem. This paper uses a new force control solution, which is based on the fast digital hydraulic valves and model based control principle. The control solution is applied in a heavy axis mimicking dynamics of mobile machine booms. Experimental results show good force, velocity and position tracking performance with varying load masses. The slow velocity performance is also much improved when compared to the earlier results.

Digital hydraulics is one of promising technologies having a huge potential to significantly improve energy efficiency in the fluid power industry. In this paper, we present a digital hydraulics solution for mobile market with a large ammount of energy usage by hydraulic components and systems. Specifically, a novel hydraulic architecture, Multiplex Digital Valve (MDV) system that employs digital valves to meet multiple service pressure/flow requirement in off highway vehicles, is introduced. With MDV being integrated in an execavator, signficant hydraulic power saving have been validated compared to the baseline machine with the negative flow control (NFC) architecture. In addition, considering noise is still a critical hurdle for digital hydraulics to be adoped, we develop several noise reduction methods that have been evaluated in simulation environment and implemented in the above MDV. The sound pressure measured from the retrofitted MDV solution with the NVH treatment in the excavator has been improved signficantly over the untreated system such that it is nearly comparable to the baseline machine. The paper also briefly presents the sound quality study for better understanding of human perception and acceptance to nonconventional sound.

Improved efficiency, better controllability and low noise are the most demanding features form a displacement machine now-a-days. Most of the conventional displacement machines are basically a reciprocating pumping element controlled by valve plates or with the help of check valve [1]. This kind of hydraulic machines loose efficiency dramatically at partial displacement because all of the pistons remain at high pressure at the cycle time and due to pressure inside the piston leakage and shear losses increases. One approach to improve the efficiency of the displacement machine can be controlling each hydraulic piston by using programmable faster valves called digital valve. As the total displacement will be controlled digitally, the total system is called Digital Displacement Technology. In digital displacement machine it is possible to disconnect some of the pistons from the load and the piston will connect only with the low pressure side, minimizing losses due to leakage and shear. As the valve will control directly with digital controller it will eliminate the necessity of servo-hydraulic control required by conventional systems. Digital valves can open fully and close again with the input signal within one revaluation of the shaft, so it gives better control to the pumping element results reduction in hysteresis and increase the linearity of the pumping element. In Digital Displacement machines by controlling the valves pistons are connected with the machine when pressure is equal, but in the traditional machines piston connection was pre-determined with the shaft angle. By doing the piston control efficiency of the machine will improve and the sound generates for the decompression flow will be reduced [17]. Also energy storage and recovery can be possible by using accumulator.

The purpose of this thesis has been to compare and analyse the use of digital hydraulic actuators in place of traditional actuators in aircraft control surface manipulation. Digital hydraulic actuator referring to a hydraulic actuator where the power has been discretized using discrete on/off-valves. For this purpose three simulation models have been used. The first model consists of a benchmark model, designed to represent a digital hydraulic actuator acting on a mass under the influence of an external spring load. The discretization in this case comes from the fact that three separate pressure levels have been used to power a four-chambered tandem piston, resulting in 81 possible force combinations.The second simulation model represents a 6 degrees of freedom aircraft model parametrised to behave like a F16 fighter aircraft. The purpose of this model has been to serve as a means to implement the digital actuator in an aircraft. The third model has been heavily based on the F16 model but re-parametrised such that it represents a delta canard aircraft. The actuators in the aircraft models was initially mounted on the control surface primarily dedicated for the manoeuvre which was simulated, in this case a step in altitude, meaning that the control surface was the elevon.As it would turn out the digital actuator had trouble achieving the precision required in order to adequately fly the aircraft at a low enough energy consumption. As such the idea took form to implement a hybrid design where the digital actuator would be paired with a proportional actuator on a separate control surface, flaperons. The digital actuator would then only require to be positioned in a close enough position and once there lock in place, leaving the proportional actuator to handle the fine tuning and trim of the aircraft. It would appear that by using the hybrid actuator design the energy consumption during the right circumstances could be reduced by as much as 40% for the delta canard configuration and 30% for the F16 case.

In aviation industry, one of the most important aspects is weight savings. This since with a lowered weight, the performance of the aircraft can be increased together with increased fuel savings and thus lowered running costs. One way of saving weight is to reduce energy consumption, since with lowered energy consumption, lowered mass of fuel is required etc. Most aircraft are today maneuvered with hydraulic systems due to its robustness and power density. It is the primary source of power for primary and secondary flight controls. The control of a conventional system which is using proportional valves is done by altering flow by restricting it to the extent where the desired output is achieved, which implies heat losses since the full performance of its supply is wasted through the valve. In previous research, more energy efficient hydraulic systems called digital hydraulics has been investigated. In difference with conventional hydraulics, digital hydraulics uses low cost, high frequency on/off valves, which either are fully opened, or fully closed, instead of proportional valves to achieve the desired output. With this comes the benefit of no energy losses due to leakage and restriction control. The downsides with digital hydraulics is the controlabillity. One way of controlling it is by using several pressure sources which outputs different pressure levels. By using the on/off valves in different combinations, different outputs can be achieved in a discrete manner. In this thesis, the aim was to remove the impact of the discrete force steps which are present in digital hydraulics by creating concepts with hybrid solutions containing both digital hydraulics and restrictive control. Three concepts were developed and investigated using simulation. The energy consumption and performance was analysed and compared with a reference model, the concepts redundancy compared to conventional systems was discussed and finally the concepts were tested with an aircraft simulation model. The concepts were found to reduce the energy consumption with different magnitude depending on the load cycle. The performance was found to be almost as good as the reference model. The redundancy compared with conventional systems should be possible to maintain with slight modifications, but further investigation is needed. It was found that one of the most important aspects regarding energy consumption is which combination of supply pressures is used to supply the system since it influences leakage and flow due to compression.

The automation of hydraulic mobile machinery, such as excavators, requires high performance control solutions. In hydraulics, this means fast and accurate force, velocity and position control of hydraulic cylinder. Especially the force control is known to be difficult with traditional servo valves. Fast digital hydraulic valves together with modern control solutions can overcome this problem. This paper uses a new force control solution, which is based on the fast digital hydraulic valves and model based control principle. The control solution is applied in a heavy axis mimicking dynamics of mobile machine booms. Experimental results show good force, velocity and position tracking performance with varying load masses. The slow velocity performance is also much improved when compared to the earlier results.

Digital hydraulics is one of promising technologies having a huge potential to significantly improve energy efficiency in the fluid power industry. In this paper, we present a digital hydraulics solution for mobile market with a large ammount of energy usage by hydraulic components and systems. Specifically, a novel hydraulic architecture, Multiplex Digital Valve (MDV) system that employs digital valves to meet multiple service pressure/flow requirement in off highway vehicles, is introduced. With MDV being integrated in an execavator, signficant hydraulic power saving have been validated compared to the baseline machine with the negative flow control (NFC) architecture. In addition, considering noise is still a critical hurdle for digital hydraulics to be adoped, we develop several noise reduction methods that have been evaluated in simulation environment and implemented in the above MDV. The sound pressure measured from the retrofitted MDV solution with the NVH treatment in the excavator has been improved signficantly over the untreated system such that it is nearly comparable to the baseline machine. The paper also briefly presents the sound quality study for better understanding of human perception and acceptance to nonconventional sound.

One of the largest energy losses in an excavator is the compensation loss. In a hydraulic load sensing system where one pump supplies multiple actuators, these compensation losses are inevitable. To minimize the compensation losses the use of a multi chamber cylinder can be used, which can control the load pressure by activate its chambers in different combinations and in turn minimize the compensation losses.  For this proposed architecture, the control of the multi chamber cylinder systems is not trivial. The possible states of the system, due to the number of combinations, makes conventional control, like a rule based strategy, unfeasible. Therefore, is the reinforcement learning a promising approach to find an optimal control.  A hydraulic system was modeled and validated against a physical one, as a base for the reinforcement learning to learn in simulation environment. A satisfactory model was achieved, accurately modeled the static behavior of the system but lacks some dynamics.  A Deep Q-Network agent was used which successfully managed to select optimal combinations for given loads when implemented in the physical test rig, even though the simulation model was not perfect.

<p>Energy conservation is a growing topic of research within various fields.  Digital Hydraulics is a division of fluid power that focuses on using on/off technology to improve the performance and efficiency of fluid power systems. One significant benefit of Digital Hydraulics is that it has enabled additional control over fluid power systems, which helps achieve component and system level improvements. Conventional radial and inline piston pumps use positive sealing valves, which mitigate leakage losses, compared to port plates commonly seen in variable displacement pumps. By using digitally controlled positive sealing valves on radial and inline piston pumps, leakage losses can be mitigated to develop a more efficient variable displacement pump. This work focuses on the design, modeling, and simulation of a mechanically actuated valving system developed for a commercially available radial piston pump. The design uses a ball screw actuation method to phase the cam during operation, changing the displacement. Using a modeling and simulation software, GT-SUITE, a simulation model was created for the digital pump that shows close correlation to the manufacturer’s data at high pressure. The parameters simulated, 50 – 200 bar, showed that the system could achieve a peak efficiency drop of approximately 11.0% from 87.0% to 76.0% from 100 – 25% displacement simulated at 200 bar and 500rpm. Compared to a typical variable displacement axial piston pump unit, the digital pump showed increased efficiencies across the bandwidth of 35-83% displacement, with a lower overall drop in efficiency across most of its operating conditions. In the comparison used, the pump is outside of its operating range and has not been optimized; thus, the simulation model created in this thesis will be used in the future to optimize the system and evaluate the system's potential performance and feasibility for future prototyping and testing as a proof of concept.  </p>