Search Results (41)

Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) strategies are gaining increasingly more traction in almost every field of engineering, offering stakeholders advanced capabilities in system monitoring, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance. Primary flight control actuators are safety-critical elements within aircraft flight control systems (FCSs), and currently, they are mainly based on Electro-Hydraulic Actuators (EHAs) or Electro-Hydrostatic Actuators (EHSAs). Despite the widespread diffusion of PHM methodologies, the application of these technologies for EHAs is still somewhat limited, and the available information is often restricted to the industrial sector. To fill this gap, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of state-of-the-art EHA PHM strategies for aerospace applications, as well as their limitations and further developments through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). An objective and clear methodology, combined with the use of attractive and informative graphics, guides the reader towards a thorough investigation of the state of the art, as well as the challenges in the field that limit a wider implementation. It is deemed that the information presented in this review will be useful for new researchers and industry engineers as it provides indications for conducting research in this specific and still not very investigated sector. Full article

This paper presents a comparison of some different configurations of electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHA). The gear pump EHA has a simpler mechanical configuration, but the electronic power command circuits and the electric motor are in high demand due to the very frequent speed variations. The variable piston pump EHA has a more complicated mechanical configuration, but the electronic power command circuits and the main electric motor are less loaded due to the constant speed of the electric motor. The variable displacement pump control can be made either using an electric motor and mechanical transmission, or an additional hydraulic circuit, to modify the swash plate angle. In total, four EHA configurations are studied in this paper (one with a gear pump and three with variable axial piston pumps). The paper aims to advantages and disadvantages of each type of EHA, using numerical simulations. Full article

This paper proposes an Enhanced Dynamic Sand Cat Search Optimization algorithm (EDSCSO) designed to address the high-order nonlinearities and strong coupling issues in the parameter tuning of the position sliding mode controller for electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs). Traditional swarm intelligence optimization algorithms often struggle with the transition from global to local search, which leads to being trapped in local optima and results in lower computational efficiency. To overcome these challenges, the EDSCSO algorithm introduces an escape mechanism, a stochastic elite cooperative bootstrap strategy, and a multi-path differential perturbation strategy. These enhancements significantly increase the diversity of the population, facilitate a smooth transition from global to local search, avoid local optimum traps, and better balance the exploration and exploitation capabilities of the algorithm. Based on this algorithm, the sliding mode surface and convergence rate parameters within the sliding mode controller are optimized. Simulation validations conducted on the combined platform of MATLAB/Simulink and AMESim demonstrate that the sliding mode PID controller optimized by the EDSCSO algorithm achieves smaller steady-state and tracking errors, exhibits greater robustness, and offers enhanced computational efficiency compared to other swarm intelligence optimization algorithms. This study provides an effective optimization strategy to improve the control performance of the EHA position sliding mode controller. Full article

In dual-redundancy electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs), the dual pumps are mainly designed for safety, where the cylinder is controlled mainly by one pump while the other one is standby for redundancy. However, such a strategy is basically like a single-pump-controlled system, and the flow from the pump may be inaccurate when the cylinder moves slowly, which will affect the motion control performance. A new dual-redundancy EHA is designed, and a series of corresponding operation modes are developed, enabling differential operation of the dual pumps. With the proposed operation modes, the inevitable flow inaccuracy problem of the single pump can be addressed through the coordination control of the dual pumps. In order to achieve better motion tracking performance, a model-based backstepping controller is synthesized, where the nonlinearities and uncertainties of the EHA are handled by model compensation and robust feedback design. Comparative simulations with existing control methods for EHAs are conducted and better motion tracking precision is achieved, especially during low-speed motion. Full article

The first quarter of the 21st century has witnessed many technological innovations in various sectors. Likewise, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the acceleration of digital transformation in organizations driven by artificial intelligence and communication technologies in Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0. Aiming at the construction of digital twins, virtual representations of a physical system allow real-time bidirectional communication. This will allow the monitoring of operations, identification of possible failures, and decision making based on technical evidence. In this study, a fault diagnosis solution is proposed, based on the construction of a digital twin, for a cloud-based Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) system contemplating the control of electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs). The system was supported by a deep learning model using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks for an effective diagnostic approach. The implemented study considers data preparation and integration and system development and application to evaluate the performance against the fault diagnosis problem. According to the results obtained, positive results are shown in the construction of the digital twin using a deep learning model for the fault diagnosis problem of an active EHA-IIoT configuration. Full article

The development of the electrification of aircraft has prompted aviation hydraulic systems to shift from traditional centralized valve actuators (CVAs) to electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs). In this paper, aiming at the demand for a quantitative comparison of performance between CVAs and EHAs, CVA and EHA prototypes with the same power level and test platform were developed. Then, based on the power flow and dynamic models of the CVA and EHA, simulation and experimental comparative tests were conducted using different load spectrum test conditions and step response test conditions. The comparative test results showed that the efficiency of the EHA was better than that of the CVA, and the dynamic response of the CVA was better than that of the EHA. Finally, a power loss quantification and parameter sensitivity analysis were performed to reveal the impact of different parameters on the different power losses and to provide suggestions for improving the performance of CVAs and EHAs. Full article

The electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) is a new type of high-performance servo actuator that originated in the field of aerospace, and it is gradually becoming a common basic component for various types of large equipment. A miniature EHA, mainly composed of a micro two-dimensional (2D) piston pump and a brushless DC motor, is designed in this article by simplifying the system structure. This paper analyzes the structure and working principle of this EHA and establishes the mathematical models of the brushless DC motor, micro two-dimensional pump, and hydraulic cylinder. Field-oriented control (FOC) is used to drive the brushless DC motor, and the models of the controller are established in Simulink. Furthermore, the models of the mechanical and hydraulic systems of the miniature EHA are established in AMESim. In addition to this, a prototype of this miniature EHA was fabricated in this paper and an experimental platform was built for experiments. In the joint simulation environment, the rise time of the EHA system at 6000 r/min is 0.158 s and the frequency response amplitude attenuation to −3 dB has a bandwidth of 20 Hz. On the other hand, the constructed miniature EHA prototype was dynamically characterized to obtain a rise time of 0.242 s at 6000 r/min and a bandwidth of 13 Hz. In this paper, the feasibility of the design scheme of the miniature EHA system is verified, and its excellent dynamic properties are verified with simulation and experiment. Full article

In pursuit of advancing the development of more electric aircraft, the present research explores the forefront capabilities of electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs) as potential replacements for conventional hydraulic flight control systems. EHAs are currently used primarily as backup options due to their limited durability. As of now, the high dynamic axial piston pump is the main cause of the limited longevity of the EHA, due to strong tribological wear. The primary objective of this investigation is the identification of parameters and pump behavior to determine the current wear of the pump, as well as providing valuable insights into run-ins, temperature dependencies, and wear-related efficiency losses for future pump improvements. In the scope of this paper, the design of EHAs is explained in detail and the impact of challenging working conditions on the health status of the pump by comprehensive analysis of load-holding modes is examined. The experimental data for analysis is conducted on a longevity test bench with test profiles specifically designed to simulate real-world operational scenarios. Full article

A new type dissimilar redundant actuation system (NT-DRAS), which is composed of an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) and an electro-mechanical actuator (EMA), is applied in high value unmanned aerial vehicles such as the future near space vehicles to improve their reliability and performance index simultaneously. Further improvement in the flight safety is achieved with the fault-tolerant control (FTC) technique which deals with system faults. This paper proposes a novel convex optimization-based fault-tolerant control (CO-FTC) strategy for the NT-DRAS subject to gradual faults which are included in the state space representation of the system. A convex analysis-based treatment for system uncertainty caused by gradual faults is applied to determine the control gain matrix. The existence condition of the control gain matrix is optimized in the linear matrix inequality (LMI) form. Finally, the determined subsystems based on the novel technique is used to solve the modeled robust FTC problem. Case studies of NT-DRAS subject to different gradual faults have been accomplished to illustrate the FTC necessity for NT-DRAS. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed CO-FTC strategy is validated by comparative analysis of the simulation results. Full article

The electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) is a highly integrated and reliable actuation system which has been widely used in aerospace and construction machinery. In addition, the direct load sensitive EHA (DLS–EHA) has been investigated by introducing load-sensitive techniques which can well match the system output and external loads. More importantly, the matching design of motor–pump parameters is an important stage in the pre-design phase of DLS–EHA. For this reason, a multi-objective optimization design method for DLS–EHA motor–pump parameters is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the motor–pump mass and energy loss models are constructed based on similarity criteria. Secondly, the multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm (MOPSO) is used to optimize the design of the motor-pump parameters, and the Pareto frontier solutions of the optimized parameters are obtained. Further, the optimal design parameters are selected on the basis of meeting the actual requirements. Finally, the DLS–EHA prototype is designed based on the optimized design parameters and experimental verification is completed. The results of the study show that the optimized design parameters can meet the design requirements. The design method proposed in this paper provides an important theoretical basis for the optimized design of DLS–EHA. Full article

This paper develops a novel output feedback control scheme for the motion-tracking problem of an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) in the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances. Firstly, a simplified third-order system model of the studied EHA is established using theoretical methods. For the first time, an extended sliding mode observer (ESMO) is introduced to simultaneously account for the shortage of unknown system states and modeling imperfections. Based on this, a robust nonlinear controller is developed using the backstepping control framework to stabilize the closed-loop system. This controller integrates estimates of immeasurable system states and lumped disturbances to deal with their adverse impacts. Moreover, the dynamic surface control (DSC) technique is employed to effectively mitigate the computational burden of the traditional backstepping framework. An ultimately uniformly bounded (UUB) performance is assured by using the recommended method. Furthermore, the stability of not only the observer but also the closed-loop system is concretely analyzed by using the Lyapunov theory. Finally, experiment results under various working scenarios are given to convincingly demonstrate the advantage of the suggested method in comparison with some reference control approaches. Full article

The control accuracy and stability of the electrohydrostatic actuator (EHA) are directly impacted by parameter uncertainty, disturbance uncertainty, and non-matching disturbance, which negatively impacts aircraft rudder maneuvering performance and even results in rudder chatter. A dynamic surface-based adaptive active disturbance rejection control (DSAADRC) is proposed as a solution for these issues. It does this by developing a novel parametric adaptive law driven by the combination of tracking error, parameter estimation error, and state estimation error to estimate the unknown parameters, using three low-order ESOs to estimate and compensate the uncertain disturbances online, and employing a dynamic surface method to obtain the differential values of virtual control signals in the backstepping method to deal with non-matching disturbances. In this research, a Lyapunov stability analysis demonstrates that the method can achieve the position tracking accuracy of the EHA under time-varying external disturbances after first establishing an EHA dynamics model with nonlinearity and uncertainty, followed by the design of an adaptive active disturbance rejection control method based on dynamic surfaces for the uncertainties and perturbations. In contrast to control strategies like Robust Control (RC) and Adaptive Robust Control (ARC), simulation and experiment comparison shows that the method has stronger anti-disturbance under time-varying external disturbances. Full article

The electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) is a new type of power-by-wire (PBW) actuation system, which is utilized to realize a more electric aircraft. However, EHA suffers from serious thermal problems, due to its high integration and high power density. Therefore, a reasonable heat dissipation structure is an essential method for solving this problem. In this paper, a novel ribbed honeycomb heat sink (RHCS) developed by combining a ribbed heat sink (RHS) with a honeycomb heat sink (HCS) is proposed. Moreover, the optimization of heat sink parameters was achieved by using a multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm (MOPSO). Initially, the thermal resistance and mass models of the HCS were constructed, based on which the optimal structural parameters of the honeycomb cell were obtained. In addition, the thermal resistance model of RHCS was constructed using the response surface method, and parameters such as rib spacing, height and width were obtained based on MOPSO. Finally, the heat dissipation capability of RHCS was verified using both a simulation and experimental methods, and the results show that the heat dissipation capability of RHCS is about $15\%$∼$20\%$ higher than that of RHS and $7.4\%$∼$10.3\%$ higher than that of HCS. The configuration and design method of RHCS proposed in this paper provide a solution for the thermal design of EHA. Full article

The wheel-legged robot combines the functions of wheeled vehicles and legged robots: high speed and high passability. However, the limited performance of existing joint actuators has always been the bottleneck in the actual applications of large wheel-legged robots. This paper proposed a highly integrated electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) to enable high-dynamic performance in giant wheel-legged robots (>200 kg). A prototype with a high force-to-weight ratio was developed by integrating a micropump, a miniature spring accumulator, and a micro-symmetrical cylinder. The prototype achieves a large output force of more than 9400 N and a high force-to-weight ratio of more than 2518 N/kg. Compared with existing EHA-based robots, it has a higher force-to-weight ratio and can bear larger loads. A detailed EHA model was presented, and controllers were designed based on sliding mode control and PID methods to control the output position and force of the piston. The model’s accuracy is improved by identifying uncertain parameters such as friction and leakage coefficient. Finally, both simulations and experiments were carried out. The results verified the fast response of force control (step response within 50 ms, the force tracking control frequency about 6.7 Hz) and the developed EHA’s good potential for future large wheel-legged robots. Full article

For an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA), the position, speed, and current cascade three-loop control architecture are dominant in existing active disturbance rejection control (ADRC). However, this architecture suffers from many problems, such as severe noise sensitivity of the extended state observer (ESO), excessive complexity of control structure, and too many tuned parameters, which makes the controller not easy to implement in practice. Aiming at the above drawbacks, a novel cascade double-loop ADRC strategy that is automatic current-constrained is proposed, which makes the whole ADRC architecture simplified to the position and the integrated speed–current double-loop architecture. Firstly, for the position control loop, the singular perturbation theory is used to reasonably reduce the order of the model for the position subsystem of EHA. A reduced order ADRC controller (ROADRC) is synthesized, which not only effectively reduces the noise sensitivity of ESO, but also circumvents use of the actuation acceleration information in the controller design process. Secondly, the integrated speed–current ADRC controller is designed by taking the speed and current subsystems of EHA into synthesis, which avoids the problem of excessive current loop bandwidth in conventional three-loop control architecture, and the number of tuned parameters is significantly reduced. Additionally, an uncomplicated and effective automatic current-constrained ADRC controller (CACADRC) is designed to solve the problem in the integrated speed–current ADRC that the current cannot be automatically constrained. Finally, by comparing the three-loop PI controller with the traditional three-loop ADRC, a detailed simulation analysis is carried out to verify the effectiveness and merits of the proposed controller. The simulation results show that the proposed controller not only inherits the advantages of high precision and strong disturbance rejection performance of the conventional ADRC, but can also efficiently decrease the noise sensitivity of ESO and effectively achieve the current-constrained control. Full article