Application of draw wire sensor in the tracking control of an electro hydraulic actuator system

Abstract

A draw wire sensor is considered as a contact measurement method. It is normally used to measure the speed and position of a system. A draw wire sensor is convenient especially when a low cost solution and a small sensor dimension are desired. The objective of this paper is to describe the application of draw wire sensor in control tracking of electro hydraulic actuator system. This research started with the modelling of electro hydraulic actuator system by using system identification approach. During the data taking process, an experiment is conducted using electro hydraulic actuator test bed. A draw wire sensor is attached to the load of electro hydraulic actuator system to measure the output displacement when the system is injected with the desired input signal. Draw wire sensor is measuring the output displacement in millimeters and then the signal is converted to voltage reading regarding to the given input signal. The input and output signal is collected and is used in system identification technique to obtain the best mathematical model that can represent the electro hydraulic actuator system. Once a model is obtained, a Self Tuning Controller (STC) with Generalize Minimum Variance Control (GMVC) strategy is designed to control the tracking performance of the electro hydraulic actuator system. The designed controller is tested in simulation and experiment mode. Then, the output result from both modes is compared. The results show that the output performance from both modes are almost similar. Thus, this research had shown that a draw wire sensor has a significant role in capturing an accurate output data from electro hydraulic actuator system even with or without the controller.