Development and evaluation of a magnetorheological fluid-based clutch with hybrid excitation

This article presents the development and control of a hybrid excitation magnetorheological (MR) fluid clutch with improved magnetic cores. The clutch adopts a hybrid excitation design with coils and permanent magnets. To obtain an increased torque, an improved magnetic core shape of the permanent magnet is adopted in the clutch. Furthermore, simulation is used to test the magnetic field in the fluid gaps. Then, a prototype is manufactured, and a test bed is built. Experiments prove that the designed hybrid excitation MR clutch has an improved torque. In order to achieve accurate torque output, a genetic algorithm (GA) optimized fuzzy proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller is presented and compared with the other two controllers, and the effectiveness is verified by simulations and experiments. It turns out that the proposed GA optimized fuzzy PID controller is effective in improving the torque tracking accuracy and can be used for torque control of MR clutches.