A Novel Adaptive Neural Network Compensator as Applied to Position Control of a Pneumatic System

Abstract

Considerable research has been conducted on the control of pneumatic systems. However, nonlinearities continue to limit their performance. To compensate, advanced nonlinear and adaptive control strategies can be used. But the more successful advanced strategies typically need a mathematical model of the system to be controlled. The advantage of neural networks is that they do not require a model. This paper reports on a study whose objective is to explore the potential of a novel adaptive on-line neural network compensator (ANNC) for the position control of a pneumatic gantry robot. It was found that by combining ANNC with a traditional PID controller, tracking performance could be improved on the order of 45% to 70%. This level of performance was achieved after careful tuning of both the ANNC and PID components. The paper sets out to document the ANNC algorithm, the adopted tuning procedure, and presents experimental results that illustrate the adaptive nature of NN and confirms the performance achievable with ANNC. A major contribution is demonstration that tuning of ANNC requires no more effort than the tuning of PID.

Simulation of an x-y pneumatic position control system using a smart control algorithm

“…The ability to upgrade controllers so they can be modified on-the-fly without stopping the manufacturing process is a versatile feature. They were tried freely based on their ability to track step and sine wave trajectories [8]. An adaptive robust coordinated motion control strategy of the cylinder drives the dual-axis gantry.…”

Position feedback dynamic surface control for pneumatic actuator position servo system

“…Chiang and Chen accomplished an intelligent adaptive control algorithm by using a neural network to minimize the tracking error (Chiang & Chen, 2017). The paper (Dehghan, Taghizadeh, Surgenor, & Abu-Mallouh, 2011) explored the potential of a novel adaptive on-line neural network compensator for the pneumatic position control.…”