Research on Power Matching and Energy Optimal Control of Active Load-Sensitive Electro-Hydrostatic Actuator

Electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) is an important type of power-by-wire (PBW) which is a highly integrated closed volume control system with the advantages of high reliability, high efficiency and easy maintenance. However, under heavy load conditions, a large amount of heat the EHA motor produces affects the system’s working time and even the system life, which restricts the widespread application of EHA systems. In order to solve the problem of motor heating and the contradiction between high dynamics and high efficiency of the EHA system, a novel active load-sensitive principle and structure of EHA system is proposed based on the load-sensitive principle. The active load-sensitive EHA (ALS-EHA) is a dual control variable system consisting of a motor pump main loop and a load-sensitive loop. As for the latter, the system load pressure is introduced into a special designed and optimized pressure fellow valve (PFV). The valve outlet is connected to the plunger pump swash plate variable mechanism. The EHA pump displacement is actively adjusted by controlling the current input to PFV. The two-degree-of-freedom cooperative control for the output flow of the pump can be implemented by adjusting the motor speed and the pump displacement. An energy optimal robust control law based on fuzzy and disturbance compensation is presented for the control architecture. The simulation results show that the ALS-EHA system based on the control law proposed in this paper can effectively reduce the motor heat while ensuring the dynamic performance of the system.