An Energy-Saving Position Control for Independent Metering Valve-Controlled Systems

The independent metering valve-controlled system (IMVCS) allows for separate control of flow and pressure in two chambers of hydraulic actuators. However, conventional valve-controlled systems often require sacrificing some energy to achieve precise position control. How to balance the two factors mentioned above is rarely studied. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a multi-objective control strategy for independent metering valve control systems considering position precision and energy saving. First, by modeling and analyzing such systems, the multi-objective optimization model is established. Specifically, the parameters of the active disturbance rejection controller are regarded as the design variables. Meanwhile, the optimization objectives consider the position accuracy and the energy consumption. After that, a nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is used to solve the above optimization problem to obtain optimal controller parameters. Thus, an optimal trade-off between positional accuracy and energy consumption is achieved. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control strategy are verified by simulation tests. The results show that the proposed strategy realizes the control performance with both positional accuracy and energy saving, compared to the conventional hydraulic configurations. It shows a root-mean-square error of less than 2 mm for position control and an 11.7% reduction in energy loss.