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Manual tuning of electrohydraulic systems is best left to the experts. But auto tuning can adjust machine controls to not only get a machine up and running quickly, but also optimize its operation. Controlling electrohydraulic servo systems has always been just a little more challenging than controlling electromechanical servomotor systems. The main reason is that electrohydraulic systems use compressible oil to move the actuator. A hydraulic system can be thought of as a mass between two springs where the piston and the load is the mass, and the oil on both sides of the piston represents the two springs. Servomotor systems are simpler because, for the most part, only the inertia of the motor and the connected load must be considered. Enough differences exist between the two types of systems that what is good for controlling one is not going to be optimal for the other. Servomotor systems can be controlled very well with PID control loop gains plus velocity and acceleration feed-forward gains. This control method has often been used to control servohydraulic systems, too, but a simple PID plus feed forwards cannot always control a hydraulic system optimally.
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that. Why wait for the PID to respond to an error? The acceleration and jerk feed forwards work on the same principle, but take into account how the oil compresses as it applies force to the load. In practice, the model for the actuator is not known exactly and it isnt perfectly linear, so closed loop control is still required. When set correctly, the feed forwards can estimate the control output usually to within 5% of the required control signal. Then, the PID needs only to provide a small correction to the control signal due to non-linearities and changes in load.
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Calculating the acceleration is even more error prone because if the velocitys resolution is only 1 in./sec, then over a 1 msec time period the acceleration will have a resolution of 1000 in./sec2, which is not usable at all. In practice, most hydraulic systems usually ramp up and down a rates closer to 100 in./sec2. Clearly, a better way must be found to estimate the velocity and acceleration to make them usable for calculating feed forwards.
A sensible solution
The answer to this problem is to use a model to estimate the velocity and acceleration as a function of the control output. The model is simply a set of equations that use floating point numbers having practically infinite resolution compared to a real feedback device. This eliminates the quantizing error, but the model had better be fairly accurate. To keep the model from going astray, the measured feedback is used to correct the model. Now, the derivative gain can be multiplied by the error between the target and estimated velocity. Similarly, the second derivative gain can be multiplied by the error between the target and the estimated acceleration. Doing so will make the output smoother.
Part Two
Figures 1 and 2 contain two graphs showing how one can use the measured velocity and the control output to generate a first and second order model respectively. The measured or feedback velocity in red is calculated using a simple method. The resolution of the feedback device is 0.001 inches but the velocity is calculated over a time span of two milliseconds, so the resolution of the feedback velocity is 0.5 inches per second. One can see that the estimated velocity is much smoother because it is generated by the model, but the feedback velocity from a first-order model doesnt follow the changes in the actual model that well. On the other hand, the
estimated velocity for the second order model follows the feedback velocity much more closely than the first order model, and best represents how the actual system is moving. This indicates that the system is a second order system, behaving like a mass between two springs. So where does the model that is used to estimate the velocity and acceleration come from?
Auto Tuning
Auto tuning is a feature that is supported by some electronic motion control systems and is necessary when using advanced features such as the second derivative gain and the jerk feed forward because few hydraulic control system designers have any experience at tuning them manually. The two parameters can be
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determined roughly by trial and error but having a method of determining the gain, damping factor and natural frequency quickly is important to reduce startup time and shorten the time it may take to retune a system as the mechanics change.
Auto Tuning
Auto tuning is a way of estimating the model of the actuator and load using the control output to the actuator and the position and velocity response as in the two graphs above. Models can be very complex but usually one can achieve 95% of the benefit with 5% of the effort if the model is kept relatively simple. A hydraulic actuator and load can be modeled simply as a mass between two springs so the model consists of a gain, damping factor and natural frequency. It is possible to estimate the gain and natural frequency at design time using the VCCM equation (See sidebar) and the formula for natural frequency (See sidebar). The damping factor is a little more difficult to estimate, but a typical damping factor is in the range of 0.3 to 0.4. Even a rough estimate of the damping factor can allow the person doing the motion control to enter these parameters into the motion controllers built-in simulator so that he or she can get started before the machinery is built. Once in the field the controls person can do an auto tune to find the actual gain, damping factor and natural frequency. Auto tuning isnt totally automatic. There is a procedure where the actuator must be moved in a specific way, usually via open loop control. The relationship between the control output and the position or velocity data is estimated by trying a value for each of the three parameters (gain, damping factor and natural frequency) and then checking to see how closely the estimated position or velocity follows actual recorded position or velocity. An evaluation can be done by summing the square of all the errors between the estimated and actual position or velocity. The three parameters mentioned above are changed in an effort to minimize the sum of the squared errors. This is a trial and error process but a computer can do it very quickly so it seems instantaneous. When the computer is done it has found the best values of the gain, damping factor and natural frequency. VCCM Equation:
Where: Fl is the load force that must be overcome, PS is supply pressure, APE is the cylinder size, v is the speed of cylinder propulsion, KVPL is the degree to which the valve is open, v is the symmetry of the valve, and c is the cylinder area ratio (cap side of piston area/rod side area). Natural Frequency:
Where: is the bulk modulus of oil, A is the surface area of the piston,
The Results
V is the volume of the cylinder, A true test is to move the actuator using a sine wave motion profile. and The actual or true velocity and acceleration will smoothly go through a range of values and the goal is to estimate the velocity and acceleration m is the mass of the load accurately so the actuator can follow the target accurately. Low resolution feedback will make the quantizing effect obvious because the velocity calculated directly from the feedback will change in steps. The goal of the model based control is to estimate smooth velocities as shown below. The graph in Figure 3 shows how an actuator with a gain of 3 inches per second, damping factor of 0.4 and a natural frequency of 10 Hz can be controlled using a PID with a second derivative gain. The feedback is
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truncated to 0.001 inches to simulate a start-stop linear magnetostrictive displacement transducer (LMDT) rod with a position feedback of 0.001 inches. As noted above, the resolution of the measured velocity would be 1 inch per second and the resolution of the acceleration would be 1000 inches per second squared. The graph shows that the estimated position is so close to the actual position that they look like one line. The estimated velocity is relatively smooth compared to what could be achieved doing simple velocity calculations where the resolution would be one inch per second. The control output is basically doing a 1 volt peak to peak sine wave to control the actuator. There is a little noise on the control output due to the errors in estimating the velocity and acceleration but it isnt bad compared to what would happen without estimating the velocity and acceleration with the model. If the model wasnt used the control output would simply be changing from +10 to -10 volt because of the inability to estimate the velocity and acceleration. Without the model based velocity and accelerations, the PID and second derivative gains would need to be drastically reduced in order to keep the control output from swinging 10 volts peak to peak. Figure 4 contains a graph of the actual and estimated velocities. There are actually two lines in the plot, but the estimated velocity is almost identical to the actual velocity, so the estimated velocity line is on top of the actual velocity line. Again, notice that there is no 1 inch per second quantizing. As expected, the estimated acceleration(shown in Figure 5) does shows the effects of feedback quantizing, but spikes of four or five inches per second squared are a lot better than errors of 1000 inches per second squared. The estimated acceleration curve still does a good job of following the actual acceleration. Just for comparison, compare the model based control above to control without the model (shown in Figure 6). The same gains are used as in Figures 3-5 above. The control output isnt shown because it changes from -10 to +10 volts due to the affect the quantized velocity and acceleration has on the control output. Since the control output is often saturated, the actuator is being controlled as if the valve is a simple on-off directional control valve. Conclusion
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Implementing model based control with an electrohydraulic motion controller that can run secondorder algorithms allows one to control systems that would otherwise be uncontrollable because the derivative gains couldnt be used or the gain values would need to be keep low so the response will be slow. The alternative is to design systems so that the damping factor and natural frequency are high but this increases the system cost.
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