Industrial applications increasingly require actuators that offer a combination of high force
output, large stroke and high accuracy. The ElectroHydraulic Actuator (EHA) was designed by Drs. Habibi and Goldenberg originally as a high-performance actuator for use in robotics. However, it was determined that the EHA had the potential to achieve high positional accuracy. Little research has been performed in the area of high-accuracy hydraulic positioning systems. Therefore, the objective of this study to achieve nano-scale positional accuracy with the EHA while maintaining large stroke and high force output. It was planned to achieve this objective through modification of the prototype EHA and the use of fuzzy control.
During this research project, both hardware and control system modifications to the EHA were
performed. A high-precision optical encoder position sensor with a 50 nm resolution was mounted on the inertial load to directly measure the position of the load. A number of device drivers were written to interface the MATLAB real-time control environment with the optical encoder and servo motor amplifier. A Sugeno-inference fuzzy controller was designed and implemented in MATLAB. For comparison purposes, a switched-gain controller and a proportional controller were also implemented in the control environment.
The performance of the fuzzy controller was compared to the switched-gain controller and
the proportional controller in a number of tests. First, the regulatory and tracking performance
of the EHA with an inertial load of 20 kg was examined. It was determined in the regulatory
tests that the positional accuracy of the EHA with the fuzzy controller was excellent, achieving
a steady state error of 50 ± 25 nm or less for step inputs in the range 5 cm to 200 nm. The
positional accuracy during the tracking tests was found to be reduced compared to the regulatory
tests since the actuator did not have sufficient time to settle to final accuracy due to the timevarying input signals. In all cases, it was found that the positional accuracy of the EHA with the fuzzy controller was significantly greater than with the switched-gain and proportional controllers for both regulatory and tracking signals. Testing with the inertial load eliminated or changed was not performed because the position sensor was mounted to the load, making it unfeasible to alter the load during the time frame of this study.
The regulatory and tracking performance of the EHA with an inertial load of 20 kg plus external
resistive loads of 90 to 280 N were investigated. It was found that the positional accuracy of the
EHA decreased with the application of an external load to 3.10 ± 0.835 µm for a 1 cm step input
(90 N load) and 8.45 ± 0.400 µm for a 3 cm step input (280 N load). Again, the positional accuracy
of the EHA decreased during the tracking tests relative to the regulatory tests, for the reason stated above. This implies that the positional accuracy of the EHA with a resistive load is in the microscale, rather than the nano-scale as was put forth as the objective of this study. Nevertheless, the positional accuracy of the EHA with the fuzzy controller was found to be significantly greater than with the switched-gain and proportional controllers. It is postulated that the increase in positional error observed during the external load tests was due to an increase in cross-port leakage, relative to
the inertial load tests, caused by the pressure differential induced across the actuator by the external load. Methods of reducing the increase in positional error caused by external loads on the EHA remains an area for future study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-05202005-142708 |
| Date | 20 May 2005 |
| Creators | Sampson, Eric Bowyer |
| Contributors | Schoenau, Greg J., Habibi, Saeid R., Gokaraju, Ramakrishna, Fotouhi, Reza, Chen, X. B. (Daniel), Burton, Richard T. |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-05202005-142708/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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