Displacement Control of Flexible Structures Using Electrohydraulic Servo-Actuators

Abstract

A general approach to the displacement or position control of a nonlinear flexible structure using electrohydraulic servo actuators is developed. Our approach makes use of linear feedback of measured structural displacements plus linear feedback of the actuator control forces; a nonlinear feedforward function of the displacement command is also used for control. Based on a mathematical model of the closed loop, general conditions for closed loop stability are obtained. In the special case that the feedback is decentralized the stabilization conditions are stated in terms of simple inequalities; moreover, the stabilization conditions are robust to structural uncertainties since the conditions do not depend on explicit properties of the structure. Such robustness is a direct consequence of use of force feedback rather than, for example, acceleration feedback. Conditions are also developed for selection of the feedforward control to achieve zero steady state error; but this condition does depend on explicit properties of the structure. The theoretical results developed in the paper should provide a framework for advanced applications of control of mechanical systems using electrohydraulic servo-actuators.