Improved hydraulic cylinder model for the virtual decomposition control approach

Abstract

This study designs improved hydraulic actuator control with an adaptive feedforward compensation for the virtual decomposition control (VDC) approach. Compared to previous VDC-based hydraulic actuator controls, the study removes the assumption that a piston cannot reach the actuator ends. This is achieved by incorporating the chamber dead volumes and the internal leakage in the actuator control with guaranteed control system stability. The proposed method is directly applicable for multiple degrees-of-freedom (n-DOF) manipulator control due to the VDC’s novel concept of virtual stability, and its inherently modular control design. The advancement of the method is experimentally verified with an n-DOF manipulator.