Synchronization control for electro-hydraulic dual-cylinder system based on force/position switching

If the rigidity of a mechanism is stiff enough, the position synchronous error of the two cylinders driving one degree-of-freedom (DOF) of the mechanism may be less than the resolution of position sensors. To handle this synchronization problem this paper proposes a force/position switching scheme, which partitions the two cylinders into a master cylinder and a slave cylinder. The master cylinder is always position tracking controlled by a second-order sliding mode controller and the slave cylinder is integrated with a force tracking controller which is a first order sliding mode controller. When the position tracking error is less than a given value, the slave cylinder switches to be force controlled. Two synchronization control methods are presented based on the switching scheme: the master-master+force/position switching control and the master-slave+force/position switching control. Simulations show that the proposed synchronization control methods can get a better performance compared with two given position-based control methods. Copyright © by HIGH TECHNOLOGY LETTERS PRESS.