Position Control of Multiple Hydraulic Actuators in an Electrohydraulic System

Abstract

Hydraulic actuators are the output of electrohydraulic system that requires control to achieve effectiveness of the system’s operation. In this article, the position control of an electrohydraulic system with multiple actuators is achieved by modelling the design of the system in the FluidSim environment using 3-way flow control valves and pressure reducing valves. The model parameters were obtained to simulate the design and ensuring that the positions of the actuators are synchronized. A mathematical model of the system was developed and simulated in MATLAB with a PID controller to track the positions of the actuators. The controller attained a rise and settling time of 0.014s ad 0.055s respectively. The gains of the controller obtained from the are imported into the SIMULINK model of the electrohydraulic system to view the output of the system in comparison with the input. The results obtained from the simulations show that the gains of the controller improve the system characteristics performance and the step responses of the actuators in the SIMULINK model show that the output of the actuators follows a step input in the system.