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Advanced in Control Engineering and Information Science

LPV Model-based Robust Controller Design of Electro-

hydraulic Servo Systems
Falu Wenga, Yuanchun Dingb, Minkang Tangb a*
a
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology,Jiangxi, 341000, China.
b
School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Jiangxi, 341000, China.

Abstract

In this paper, a Lyapunov-based control algorithm is developed for position tracking control of a class of
electro-hydraulic servo systems driven by double-rod hydraulic actuators. By utilizing the nonlinear servo
valve flow-pressure characteristics of the hydraulic system, the electro-hydraulic servo system is firstly
described as a linear parameter varying (LPV) model. Then the sufficient strict linear matrix inequality
(LMI) conditions for the robust stabilizability of the uncertain systems are proposed in terms of LMIs. By
solving those LMIs, a parameter-dependent controller is established for the closed-loop system to be
stable with a prescribed level of disturbance attenuation. Finally, the numerical simulations demonstrate
the usefulness and advantages of the proposed controllers.

2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [CEIS 2011]
Keywords: Robust stabilizability; Uncertainty; Parameter-dependent controller; Electro-hydraulic servo system;

1. Introduction

Electro-hydraulic servo systems have been widely used in industry by virtue of their small size to
power ratios and the ability to apply very large torques and forces; for example, they have been used in
robot manipulators [1], hydraulic elevators [2], and active suspension systems [3], etc. However, the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +086-13397970846; fax: +086-797-8312259.

E-mail address: wengfalu@hotmail.com.

1877-7058 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.08.080
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dynamic behavior of hydraulic systems is highly nonlinear due to phenomena such as nonlinear servo
valve flow-pressure characteristics and variations in control fluid volumes and associated stiffness, which,
in turn, cause difficulties in the control of such systems. Therefore, the study of hydraulic systems has
received much attention and various analysis and synthesis methods have been developed over the past
years; such as sliding mode adaptive control [4], robust control [5], adaptive robust control [6], etc..
In this paper, by utilizing the nonlinear servo valve flow-pressure characteristics, the electro-hydraulic
servo system is described as a linear parameter varying (LPV) model. Based on this LPV model, the
parameter-dependent controller is established for the stabilization of the closed-loop system. The obtained
controllers are very simple and more easily implemented than those adaptive controllers. The numerical
example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.

2. PROBLEM FORMULATION AND DYNAMIC MODELS

The system under consideration is depicted in Fig.1. The goal is to have the inertia load to track any
specified motion trajectory as closely as possible.
x
P1 P2 k

Q1 PL = P1 P2 Q2

1
i QL = ( Q1 + Q2 )
2

Ps Pr

The dynamics of the inertia load can be described by

mx&& = PL bx& kx + (t ) , (1)
where x , m , , b , and k represent the displacement, the mass of the load, the ram area of the cylinder,
the damping coefficient, and the effective stiffness of spring, respectively, PL = P1 P2 is the load pressure
of the cylinder. The actuator (or the cylinder) dynamics can be written as [7]
Vt &
PL = x& Ctm PL + QL , (2)
4 e
where Vt , e , and Ctm are the total volume of the cylinder, the effective bulk modulus, and the coefficient
of the total internal leakage, respectively. QL = ( Q1 + Q2 ) 2 is the load flow, by Merritt [7]

Ps sgn( xv ) PL
QL = Cd wxv , (3)

where Cd , w , Ps , , xv are discharge coefficient, spool valve area gradient, supply pressure of the fluid,
fluid Density, and spool valve displacement, respectively. The spool valve displacement xv is related to
the current input i by a first-order system given by [8]
v x&v = xv + K v i (4)

where v and K v are the time constant and gain of the servo-valve respectively. In practice, the mass,
damping and stiffness are usually subjected to possible time-varying perturbations. From (1)(4), the
entire uncertain system can be expressed in the state space form as
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( E + E ) q& (t ) = ( A( ) + A) q(t ) + Bu (t ) + B (t ),
Z (t ) = Cz q(t ), (5)
u (t ) = K ( ) q(t ),

0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1
Vt k b 0 C w
where E = diag 1, m , , v , A ( ) = , B = , B = , A34 = d ,
4 e 0 C A 0 0
tm 34

0 0 0 1 Kv 0
1 1
= ps sgn( xv ) PL , m = ( m + m ) , m = m , < 1 , = ( m m ) ( m + m ) , k = k + k ,
2 2
( )
1
( )( ) ( )
k = k , < 1 , = k k k + k , b = b + b , b = b , < 1 , = b b b + b ,
2
( )( )
f T + bf
E = m f 2 f 2T , A = kf f T . f R 4 denotes the column vector with ith element to be 1 and
2 1 2 2 i

( )
others to be 0. q = [ x, x& , PL , xv ] are state variables. m, k , c m, k , c are the lower(upper) bounds of the
mass, stiffness and damping respectively. Obviously, can be obtained online for Ps , sgn( xv ) , and PL can
be measured online. Assuming 1 2 , we can describe A ( ) as convex sets
2
A ( ) = i Ai , i = 1, 2 , (6)
i =1

1 = ( 2 ) ( 2 1 ) , 2 = 1 1 , and Ai = A (i )( i = 1, 2 ) are the vertices of A ( ) . K ( ) is the

parameter-dependent control law need to be design, which can be describe in the following convex sets
2
K ( ) = i K i , (7)
i =1

where K i ( i = 1, 2 ) are the vertices of K ( ) .

Lemma 1: let , and F be real matrices of suitable dimensions with F T F I . Then, for any scalar
>0
F + T F T T T + T T . (8)

3. PARAMETER-DEPENDENT CONTROLLER DESIGN

Theorem 1: The system (5) without uncertainties is asymptotical stabilizable with the performance
z 2 < 2 for all non-zero L2 [ 0, ) , if there exist P > 0 , S , Z i , scalar satisfying the following
LMIs
11 12 B SCz T

12 B 0
i = < 0 , i = 1, 2, (9)
2I 0

I
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Where 11 = Ai S T + SAiT + BZ i + Z iT BT , 12 = P ES T + SAiT + Z iT BT , 22 = SE T ES T .

Furthermore, the state-feedback controller gain matrices are described as (7) with
K i = Z i S T , i = 1, 2 . (10)

Theorem 2: The system (5) is robustly stabilizable with the performance z 2

< 2
for all non-
zero L2 [ 0, ) , if there exist P > 0 , S , Z i , scalar and positive scalars 1 ,2 ,3 satisfying the
following LMIs
i M12
< 0 , ( i = 1, 2 ) , (11)
* M 22
Where
T T
i = i + 111T + 2 2 2T + 3 3 3T , 1 = m f 2T f 2T 0 0 , 2 = k f 2T f 2T 0 0 ,
T T T
3 = b f 2T f 2T 0 0 , 12 = [ H1 H 2 H 3 ] , H1 = 0 f 2T S T 0 0 , H 2 = f1T S T 0 0 0 ,
T
H 3 = f 2T S T 0 0 0 , M 22 = diag {1 , 2 , 3 } ,

i (i = 1, 2) are the same defines as theorem 1. Furthermore, the state-feedback controller gain
matrix description is the same as(10).

4. NUMERICAL EXAMPLE

Simulation results are obtained for the system showing in figure 1 having the following actual
parameters: [ m, m ] = [ 200,300] kg , Ps = 10MPa , = 5550mm 2 , b , b = [16, 22] N / (mm / s ) ,
K v = 0.45 , v = 0.00636 , Ctm = 15mm5 Ns , Vt = 1.75 106 mm3 , e = 700 N mm 2 ,
k , k = [ 65, 75] N mm , Cd w = 3.42 104 mm3 N s . By defining Max( PL ) = 90% Ps = 9 MPa , we
obtain 1 = 1, 2 = 10 . Assuming
S1 0
S= , Z1 = [ Z11 0] , Z 2 = [ Z 21 0] ,
S 2 S3

where S1 R 33 , S3 R11 , S2 , Z11 , Z 21 R13 , solving the LMIs(11), we obtain the solution as follows:

= 0.41 , K1 = [ -1.6421 0.0413 - 0.0071 0] , K 2 = [ - 0.9212 - 0.0154 - 0.0031 0] .

For description in brevity, we denote this designed controller as controller I thereafter. By the
Corollary 1 in [9], we obtain the fixed gain controller II: K = [ -1.5541 0.0023 - 0.0072 0] .
In order to verify the dynamics of the closed-loop system, the step response simulation results are
demonstrated in Fig.2 and Fig.3. It is observed from Fig. 2 that the controller I obtained in this paper has
much less overshoot than the controller II. Fig.3 shows the smooth input signal obtained by controller I.
At the same time, there is a parameter for us to adjust to obtain the satisfying performance.

5. CONCLUSION

The problem of robust controller synthesis for a class of electro-hydraulic servo systems driven by
double-rod hydraulic actuators is investigated in this research. Firstly, by introducing a linear varying
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parameter, the system is described as a linear parameter varying (LPV) model. Secondly, based on the
LPV model, the sufficient strict LMI conditions for the robust stabilizability of the uncertain systems is
proposed by using parameter-dependent Lyapunov method. Then by solving those LMIs, the desired
parameter-dependent controller is obtained. Finally, the numerical examples are given to show the
effectiveness of the proposed theorems.

Fig. 2. Trajectory tracking (actual position: dot line, desired: Fig. 3. servo valve control input
dark line)

Acknowledge

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (No.51064008) and Jiangxi
provincial Science Foundation (No.GJJ08273) of China.

References

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