Design and Simulation of Fuzzy-Adaptive-PID Controller for Positioning of Stewart Platform Using Electric Linear Actuators

Recently, many practical applications as industrial automation, robotics, radar systems and aerospace engineering have depended on parallel manipulators like Stewart platform. It can provide six degrees of freedom for accurate and precise positioning of objects in space. Linear actuators are used to control the position and orientation of the platform. This paper studies the feasibility of using a controller combines fuzzy and adaptive PID instead of using a traditional PID controller to achieve accurate position control of electric linear actuators and withstand the changes in operating conditions and system external disturbances. PID controller parameters have been calculated based on root locus method. The fuzzy controller tuning parameters have been estimated using gradient decent method and sequential quadratic programming algorithm. The simulation and analysis of the controllers were conducted using Simulink. The results show that the proposed fuzzy-adaptive-PID controller provides better position response compared to traditional PID controller as it has less settling time and overshoot. The simulation also shows that the controller is suitable to be used in industrial applications as it is able to maintain stable and accurate position control under different external signal disturbances.