POSITION CONTROL OF PNEUMATIC CYLINDER USING A LEARNING STRATEGY (PART II, A FOLLOW-UP CONTROL ON POSITION OF A CONTROL SYSTEM WITH A VELOCITY CONTROL LOOP).

Position controls of pneumatic cylinders are considered to be very difficult, because of nonlinearities in the system such as friction in the ram and ramchamber compliance. A pneumatic cylinder system consisting of an electro-pneumatic servovalve and a doubleacting ram is studied experimentally to develop an effective use of the system for the follow-up control on position. A velocity control loop is added to compensate for the position response. Parameters of the control law are design such that the damping coefficient of the dominant pole of the control system is 0. 707 (the optimum damping coefficient). A learning strategy which was proposed by one of the authors in the previous paper is applied to the present system. Effects of the velocity control loop on the convergence of the learning and the control error are examined. The validity of the design of the control law is confirmed.