A Novel Reference Governor for Disturbance Observer-Based Load Pressure Control in a Dual-Actuator-Driven Electrohydraulic Actuator

Abstract

In real-world applications, hydraulic pressure control performance is influenced by model uncertainties, the control bandwidths of valves and pumps, and deviations from the linear working region. To overcome the aforementioned obstacles, a novel reference governor for disturbance observer (DOB)-based load pressure control is proposed in this paper for a dual-actuator-driven electrohydraulic cylinder. First, a control-oriented model for load pressure control was developed. On the basis of this, a nonlinear DOB-based feedback controller, as well as a mid-range control architecture for the variable displacement pump and proportional valve, was fabricated so that the performance degradation caused by the pump’s slow responses and imprecise system parameters is suppressed. Specifically, this controller is augmented by a novel smooth reference governor, which modifies the load pressure command in the pressure transition periods to guarantee that the actuator’s constraints are not violated. Another merit of the novel reference governor is that it ensures a smooth trajectory transition, and therefore, unmodeled high-frequency plant dynamics will not be invoked. Case studies were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control approach. The study results show that the approach can significantly enhance the hydraulic system’s pressure tracking performance.