HIGHLY ACCURATE PNEUMATIC POSITION CONTROL

F.Nurta AKDA, B.Sc

nurtacakdag@gmail.com

Prof.Dr. Ahmet KUZUCU

kuzucuah@itu.edu.tr

Istanbul Technical University Mechanical Engineering Department 34437 Beyoglu Istanbul ABSTRACT This paper presents three low cost control methodologies for accurate position control of a pneumatic cylinder. These control methodologies are Bang-Bang control with velocity feedback, sliding mode control, and PWM control using 3/2 way directional single solenoid valves. Control algorithms are written in LabVIEW 8.0 environment and National Instruments M-Series PCI-6221 DAQ card is used for control. 1. Introduction Pneumatic control systems are used widespread in the industrial automation systems owing to the advantages such as cleanliness, low cost, high speed, and ease of maintenance. Unfortunately, pneumatic actuators are subject to nonlinearities, such as stiction, and compressibility of air, which make accurate position control of a pneumatic actuator difficult to achieve. There have been many researches in last decades about position control of a pneumatic cylinder, which are driven by servo valves or on-off solenoid valves. The main trend seems to be towards servo-pneumatics which has high performance but high costs. In this study, an electro-pneumatic experimental system, installed in Automatic Control Laboratory of Mechanical Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University is improved and used to achieve the 0,1 mm precision goal. In previous studies on this system, a magnetically coupled rodless cylinder with high friction was used and therefore the accuracy within 0,3 mm was obtained but repeatability was low. The old cylinder is now replaced by a low friction single rod

cylinder and all the equipment replaced by industrial products to achieve another goal to make it clear that the results of this study can be used directly in the industry too. 2. System Description The experimental set-up is formed by a low friction and single rod cylinder CDA2YL40500 from SMC, a SONY Magnescale SJ300-050 linear encoder, two VQZ-312 on-off single solenoid valves from SMC, two PSE-510 analog pressure sensors from SMC, two speed controllers, a National Instruments M-Series PCI-6221 DAQ card, LabVIEW 8.0 and a computer.(Fig. 1)

Fig. 1 Pneumatic System 3. Control Design In this study, two-level control with velocity feedback, sliding mode control and PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) control algorithms are applied to the system. These algorithms provide servocontrol of pneumatic actuators at a significantly lower cost by utilizing onoff solenoid valves in place of costly servovalves. . 3.1 Bang-Bang Control with Velocity Feedback The control expression is given by:
i u = sign e + KV e

(1)

By tuning the Kv gain, position control of the cylinder is achieved by one or two switching. In this method deadzone must be defined carefully to achieve a control without limit cycle, otherwise chattering will be observed on system response. 3.2 Sliding Mode Control In sliding mode control the algorithm is as like as velocity feedback controls algorithm.

Only Kv gain is high, and the system will switch on the e + e = 0 sliding mode line.(Fig.2)

Fig. 2 Phase Plane of Sliding Mode Control

If Kv is very high, system switches will have large settling time with high number of commutations. The aim in this control is to go fast to the set point with lesser commutations.

3.3 PWM Control PWM control with 3/2 way on-off valves instead of servovalves is used in many researches for accurate position control. In this system PWM is used with a frequency of 20 Hz, which is supported by the on-off valves. In PWM control, according to the feedback results duty cycle of PWM is controlled as two valves are excited reversely. Duty cycles value is maximum 0.9 and minimum 0.1, which means on-off valves do not get to open to the air or to the supply pressure during all period of PWM.

4. Experimental Results The best results for two level control with velocity feedback are recorded by a deadzone value of = 2 mm. (Fig 3)

Fig. 3 Experimental results of velocity feedback control (yref = 200mm, Kv = 0,01, = 2mm , y = 199,99)

Sliding mode control resulted with highly satisfactory performance within = 0.05 mm accuracy and 100% repeatability. With these results, the proposed configuration can be used in the industry instead of expensive servo cylinders. One of the results is depicted in Figure 4.

Fig. 4 Experimental results of sliding mode control (yref = 200mm, Kv = 0,02, = 0, 05mm , y = 199,97)

PWM resulted with a final position error within 2.5 mm when the frequency is 20 Hz with a supply pressure of 1.25 bar. One of the experimental results is depicted on fig. 5.

Fig. 5 Experimental results of PWM control (yref = 200mm, Kp = 0,0045, y = 200,1)

5. Conclusion This paper presented 0.05 mm precision and very high repeatability in Sliding Mode Control by using on-off valves, which is outstanding with respect for all achieved results all over the world. By modular programming in LabVIEW, this control algorithm and cheap control system can replace expensive servocylinders and step motor cylinders in the industry. REFERENCES
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