Position control of a cylinder using a hydraulic bridge circuit with ER valves

This paper presents the position control of a double-rod cylinder system using a hydraulic bridge circuit with four electro-rheological (ER) valves. After synthesizing a silicone oil-based ER fluid, a Bingham property of the ER fluid is first tested as a function of electric field in order to determine operational parameters for the ER valves. On the basis of the level of the field-dependent yield stress of the composed ER fluid, four cylindrical ER valves are designed and manufactured. Subsequently, step responses for pressure drops of the ER valve are empirically analyzed with respect to the intensity of the electric field. A cylinder system with a cart is then constructed using a hydraulic bridge circuit with four ER valves, and its governing equation of motion is derived. A neural network control scheme incorporating the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is formulated through the feedback error learning method, and experimentally implemented for the position control of the cylinder system. Both regulating and tracking position control responses for square and sinusoidal trajectories are presented in time domain. In addition, a tracking durability of the control system is provided to demonstrate the practical feasibility of the proposed methodology. [S0022-0434(00)00701-2].