Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract— The paper investigates an embedded system for control, digital signal processing, application of advanced
automatic electrohydraulic steering of heavy duty machines control strategies, real-time diagnostics and safety information.
(loaders, construction machines). Based on two identified Modern electrohydraulic steering systems are composed of
nonlinear models of the steering unit two correspondent sets of conventional HSU, flow rate amplification valve (Load-
PI regulator parameters are calculated with iterative Sensing), pilot controlled proportional valve, finite state micro-
optimization procedure in MATLAB/Simulink environment. valve automata and steering cylinder with position sensor.
Calculated regulator parameters are evaluated on a physical test
bench composed of steering cylinder, hydraulic steering unit with The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the performance of
integrated digital valve actuation and industrial class two digital PI controllers for tracking of steering trajectory.
microcontroller. Achieved performance of position tracking They are optimally tuned based on two alternative nonlinear
defends digital valve technology as a low cost alternative to models – analytical physical model (PA) and nonlinear
classical spool/sleeve based steering. autoregressive model (NARX). Physical model is a grey box
model where a particular structure is fixed and only the
Keywords - electrohydraulic control, embedded system design, parameter values are unknown. Nonlinear ARX model is a
nonlinear modelling, controller design black box model where only the input/output functional
I. INTRODUCTION behavior is important and not the underlying physical structure.
Grey box and black box models are two most often modeling
The concept of non-road mobile machine refers to vehicles alternatives in system identification [2].
operating mostly outside public roads. Examples of such
machines are all road construction, materials handling, II. EMBEDDED SYSTEM DESIGN
agriculture and other industrial vehicles. Considerable weight Authors have constructed a laboratory hydraulic test
and power of non-road mobile machines as well as their equipment for EHSU type OSPEC200 LSRM, taking into
relatively low speed increase steering loads on their wheels. account current technical specifications [3] from the
Hence it is infeasible to use a conventional steering system manufacturer. Design of the test bench system is described in
similar to one employed in automobiles. Steering system of a detail in [4].
mobile machine works on hydrostatic principle. There is no
rigid mechanical linkage from the steering wheel to the main Figure 1 presents a simplified schematic of the EHSU with
steering axle. The steering force is transmitted by the means of its main subsystems: digital valve module (PVE), 4-directional
a hydraulic energy through a compressible fluid. Hydraulically 3-position pilot valve and a steering cylinder. When the signal
powered steering systems are reliable, achieve fast response 𝑢𝑃𝑉𝐸 (𝑡) > 0 the upper left and lower left digital valves
times, have relatively compact dimensions and they can be switch to drive the pilot valve to the left. Alternatively when
installed only on vehicles with maximum speed under 60 km/h 𝑢𝑃𝑉𝐸 (𝑡) < 0 pilot valve moves to the right. 𝐾𝑃𝑉𝐸 (𝑠) is the
[1]. PVE internal controller for pilot valve position with reference
A key element in steering system for non-road mobile signal 𝑢(𝑡). The pilot valve supplies and directs the flow
machine is the hydrostatic steering unit (HSU) which has through the steering cylinder. For example a right shift of the
evolved technologically for several decades. Recently the pilot valve applies pressure to the left cylinder chamber.
industry has begun to introduce a digital (switching) Steering cylinder controller 𝐾𝐶𝑌𝐿 (𝑠) measures piston position
electrohydraulic valve mechanism into steering units so called and calculates the signal 𝑢(𝑡) in order to track reference signal
electro-HSU (EHSU). Such capabilities for electrohydraulic 𝑟(𝑡) from a steering wheel or joystick.
energy conversion connect standard HSU to IoT (internet of
things) framework. New HSU features emerge such as remote
7th Mediterranean Conference on Embedded Computing MECO’2018, Budva, Montenegro
translates the pilot valve. One has to note that current pilot 𝑥𝑃𝑉𝐸 = ∫ 𝑣𝑃𝑉𝐸 (𝜏)𝑑𝜏 , 𝑣𝑃𝑉𝐸 = 𝑢𝑃𝑉𝐸 − 𝑘3 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙 (1)
0
valve state is a linear combination either between its center 𝑡
and left states or between the center and right state. In addition 𝑦 = ∫ 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙 (𝜏)𝑑𝜏 , 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙 = 𝑘1 𝑥𝑃𝑉𝐸 + 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙,𝑞 (2)
to the pressure (𝑃𝐶𝑌𝐿 ) and tank (𝑇) ports the pilot valve 0
𝑑 1
includes two additional ports marked with a tiny dashed line 𝑢 = − 𝑢𝑃𝑉𝐸 + 𝑘(𝑢(𝑡 − 𝜏𝑒𝑙 ) − 𝑥𝑃𝑉𝐸 ) (3)
on the figure 1. These are load sensing ports which detect the 𝑑𝑡 𝑃𝑉𝐸 𝑇1
pressure application to a cylinder chamber. Load sensing 𝛥𝑉
signal allows the hydraulic system to partially turn off some = −𝐾𝑉 ⇒ 𝑞 = −𝐾𝑉𝑃̇ = 𝐾𝑞 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙 (4)
𝛥𝑃
other low priority machine subsystem and to direct more flow
𝑉 = 𝐾𝑉 𝑦, 𝑃 = 𝐾𝑃 𝑥𝑃𝑉𝐸 ⇒ 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙,𝑞 = −𝑘2 𝑣𝑃𝑉𝐸 𝑦 (5)
to the high priority steering subsystem.
In the second model (NARX) the a priori knowledge about
system constructive elements is not of interest but only input-
output system behaviour is important. Then the steering
cylinder piston position 𝑦 is nonlinear function (6) of four
variables - two past values of 𝑦 and two past values of the
control signal 𝑢. The function 𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 is piecewise linear with
components 𝐶𝑘 𝑥⃗ + 𝑐𝑘 and domains 𝑀𝑘 as (7) shows. Each
domain 𝑀𝑘 is defined by it border normal vector 𝐵𝑘 and its
position within a binary tree structure of all domains. Input
vector’s domain is inferred with (8) where 𝑙𝑘 and 𝑟𝑘 are left
and right neighbors of a domain 𝑘. As a result 𝑥⃗ ∈
𝑀𝑖1 , 𝑀𝑖2 , … , 𝑀𝑖𝑧 and value of 𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 is calculated over 𝑀𝑖𝑗
where residuals Δ𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 (𝑥⃗ ∈ 𝑀𝑖𝑘 ) calculated with (9) reach
smallest value. The value of the function is selected based on
the smallest of them where 𝜂𝑘 = 𝜎𝑘2 is dispersion of the error
of the linear approximation in; 𝑀𝑘 . and 𝐷𝑘 is correlation matrix
of parameters. The function 𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 is estimated from
identification subset of experimental data with nlarx command
in MATLAB.
FIG.1. HYDRAULIC SCHEMATIC OF EHSU
𝑦(𝑡 − 0.1)
Our laboratory test bench equipment includes MC012-22 𝑦(𝑡 − 0.2)
microcontroller [5], JS6000 joystick, OSPEC200LSRM EHSU 𝑦 = 𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 ( ) = 𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 (𝑥
⃗⃗⃗⃗) (6)
𝑢(𝑡 − 0.1)
with embedded PVE, hydraulic cylinder and resistive position 𝑢(𝑡 − 0.2)
sensor. Piston position is sensed by a variable resistive element.
The microcontroller hosts the PI control algorithm for cylinder 𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 (𝑥⃗ ∈ 𝑀𝑘 ) = 𝑑 + (𝐿 + 𝐶𝑘 )𝑥⃗ + 𝑐𝑘 , 𝑘 = 1 … 𝑁 (7)
position.
A. STEERING SYSTEM MODELS
𝐵𝑘 𝑥⃗ < 𝑏𝑘 ⇒ 𝑥⃗ ∈ 𝑀(𝑙𝑘 ), 𝐵𝑘 𝑥⃗ ≥ 𝑏𝑘 ⇒ 𝑥⃗ ∈ 𝑀(𝑟𝑘 ) (8)
We’ve identified the dynamical transformation of the
control signal through the system with two alternative
𝛥𝐹𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒 (𝑥⃗ ∈ 𝑀𝑘 ) = √𝜂𝑘 𝑥⃗ 𝑇 𝐷𝑘 𝑥⃗ 𝑙𝑛𝑁 2 , 𝜂𝑘 = 𝜎𝑘2 (9)
nonlinear models labeled Physical Analogy (PA) and
Nonlinear ARX (NARX). According to [6,7,8] nonlinear
modeling is appropriate for power steering applications. Model Experimental data are divided into two subsets - for
parameters are estimated with nonlinear least squares identification and for validation. The parameters of both
optimization algorithm from the experimental data. models are estimated from the same identification subset of
The first model (PA) accounts for available a priori data. Rest of the data is left for validation of the models. Hence
knowledge summarized in Figure 1. Every displacement 𝑥𝑃𝑉𝐸 validation subset of data is not explicit function of estimated
of the PVE controlled pilot valve, expressed with (1), causes a parameters as is the case with identification subset. Some
validation results are presented on Figure 2.
translation with velocity 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙 of the steering cylinder piston
according to (2). 𝐾𝑃𝑉𝐸 (𝑠) is represented as a standard PI B. MODEL BASED DESIGN OF PI REGULATORS
regulator (3). A term 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙,𝑞 in (2) accounts for compressibility Both identified models are exported as Simulink diagrams
of the fluid (bulk modulus) which is evaluated from (4) and (5). and a discrete PI regulator structure is represented there too.
Viscous friction losses 𝐹𝑣 = −𝑘𝑣 𝑣𝑐𝑦𝑙 disturb the flow rate 𝑞𝑐𝑦𝑙 Regulator parameters are the proportional gain 𝐾𝑃 and the
or equivalently 𝑣𝑃𝑉𝐸 .
7th Mediterranean Conference on Embedded Computing MECO’2018, Budva, Montenegro
integral gain 𝐾𝐼 . A linear ramp signal is connected to the model To assess performance of each regulator the reference
output to simulate worst case load disturbance. trajectory and actual steering-cylinder piston stroke are
compared. The experimental data is recorded at constant load
pressure of 5MPa in the two chambers of the cylinder. The
loading system of the test bench [4] enables us to apply such
loading pressure with two over-center valves which are
adjusted manually. To avoid subjective factor reference
trajectory is programmed into the microcontroller and remains
unchanged during the experiments. In practice a human
operator will use a joystick device to generate desired reference
signal. In our experiments we use two kinds of reference
trajectories – a step signal which is a standard for controller
design (Fig. 5) and a piecewise linear signal which is typical
for steering applications (Fig. 6). Both trajectories cover the
FIG.2. COMPARISON OF THE TWO IDENTIFIED MODELS IN THE full cylinder stroke in each direction. As an integral criterion
TIME DOMAIN. for closed-loop tracking performance we calculate the level of
fit in percentage units between reference and measured signal
Then optimization procedure tunes regulator parameters to with the expression (11) [2].
minimize the cost function (10) with the help of lsqnonlin
command in MATLAB. Closed-loop step responses achieve ‖𝑦 − 𝑦𝑟𝑒𝑓 ‖
2
setting time of about 4 seconds for the full stroke with no 𝐹𝐼𝑇 = (1 − ) ∗ 100 (11)
steady state error and overshoots (Fig.3). ‖𝑦𝑟𝑒𝑓 − ̅̅̅̅̅‖
𝑦𝑟𝑒𝑓
2
FIG.6. EXPERIMENTAL RECORDING OF STEERING CYLINDER FIG.8. PVE INPUT SIGNAL (STEP REFERENCE)
PISTON POSITION (PIECEWISE REFERENCE)
IV. CONCLUSION
PI regulator based on NARX model is faster than the
regulator based on PA model in reaching the reference level. Two digital PI regulators are optimally tuned in
However the rise times of both regulators are the same. It is MATLAB/Simulink environment based on correspondent
interesting also to note the similarities between simulated and alternative as structure nonlinear models identified from
experimental step responses of the regulators although the experimental data. Table 1 summarizes calculated regulator
simulations are run with functionally close but different as a parameters and achieved performance by them. There 𝑥̅𝑒,𝑡𝑒 is
structure nonlinear models. Tracking of the stepwise linear the mean of tracking error of the piecewise linear trajectory,
reference trajectory with both regulators is well enough. 𝜎𝑒,𝑡𝑒 – standard deviation of the tracking error and FIT is
Variation of EHSU dynamics with the piston stroke is the calculated according to (12)
cause for non-uniform tracking errors.
Fig.7 shows the pressure drop and Fig.8 shows PVE control
signal for both regulators during the step reference. Pressure is
measured continuously cylinder chambers. Pressure drop is
calculated by subtracting right chamber from the left chamber
pressure. Pressure drop is proportional to the force acting on
the piston – when it is with positive sign the piston moves to
the right and when it is with negative sign the piston moves to Table. 1 Comparison of regulators & tracking.
the left.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Current research was supported by the funding contract №
DM 07 / 7 with National Science Fund Bulgaria.
REFERENCES