Nonlinear, Adaptive and Fault-tolerant Control for Electro-hydraulic Servo Systems

Fluid power systems have been in use since 1795 with the rst hydraulic press patented by Joseph Bramah and today form the basis of many industries. Electro hydraulic servo systems are uid power systems controlled in closed-loop. They transform reference input signals into a set of movements in hydraulic actuators (cylinders or motors) by the means of hydraulic uid under pressure. With the development of computing power and control techniques during the last few decades, they are used increasingly in many industrial elds which require high actuation forces within limited space. However, despite numerous attractive properties, hydraulic systems are always subject to potential leakages in their components, friction variation in their hydraulic actuators and deciency in their sensors. These violations of normal behaviour reduce the system performances and can lead to system failure if they are not detected early and handled. Moreover, the task of controlling electro hydraulic systems for high performance operations is challenging due to the highly nonlinear behaviour of such systems and the large amount of uncertainties present in their models. This thesis focuses on nonlinear adaptive fault-tolerant control for a representative electro hydraulic servo controlled motion system. The thesis extends existing models of hydraulic systems by considering more detailed dynamics in the servo valve and in the friction inside the hydraulic cylinder. It identies the model parameters using experimental data from a test bed by analysing both the time response to standard input signals and the variation of the outputs with dierent excitation frequencies. The thesis also presents a model that accurately describes the static and dynamic normal behaviour of the system. Further, in this thesis, a fault detector is designed and implemented on the test bed that successfully diagnoses internal or external leakages, friction variations in the actuator or fault related to pressure sensors. The presented algorithm uses the position and pressure measurements to detect and isolate faults, avoiding missed detection and false alarm. The thesis also develops a high performance adaptive nonlinear controller for the hydraulic system which outperforms comparable linear controllers widely used in the industry. Because of the controller adaptivity, uncertainties in the model parameters can be handled. Moreover, a special attention is given to reduce the complexity of the controller in order to demonstrate its real-time implementation. Finally the thesis combines the techniques developed in fault detection and nonlinear control in order to develop an active fault-tolerant controller for electro hydraulic servo systems. In order to maintain overall service and performances as high as possible when a potential fault occurs, the fault-tolerant controlled system prognoses the fault and changes its controller parameters or structure. The consequences of an unexpected fault are avoided, high availability is ensured and the overall safety in electro hydraulic servo systems is increased.