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Executing the impedance control of a pneumatic actuator with solenoid on/off valves is the subject of this paper. Firstly, based on equations of the system, a method presented to enforce the pneumatic system to behave like a linear mass-damper-spring system with adjustable parameters. Based on this method, the desired force determined that is aimed to act on the movable rigid components. Then, with respect to the fact that both the pneumatic output force and its stiffness are functions of the chambers pressures, the desired pressure profile of the chambers have been derived that must be followed by the pressure control loop. The sliding mode approach used and beside it a new algorithm implemented to convert the control input to duty cycle of the on/off valves. The experimental tests show that the achievable range of impedance parameters is limited due to the possible instability problem. Also the position tracking in free space at the system under impedance control is good, while the contact force is less compare with the position control case. Then taking into consideration the new mathematical model presented in this paper, we discussed on the factors that affect the quality and achievable mechanical impedance range of pneumatic actuator.

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Under a constant loading condition, use of a controller with constant coefficients can be acceptable for servo pneumatic systems. However in variable loads with widespread changes, more advanced control methods should be considered to achieve desirable performance. In this paper, an adaptive controller is designed and implemented to a variably loaded servo pneumatic system with PWM driven switching valve. In the under examination servo pneumatic system, PWM driven fast switching valve is used instead of expensive servo or proportional valves. Real time identification of system parameters is performed using input-output data and controller parameters are adjusted instantaneously. “Self-tuning regulators” algorithm, in which controller parameters obtain from solving a design problem, is applied to design the proposed adaptive controller. The designed controller is applied to the servo pneumatic system via an interface board and its performance is compared with PD and multi model controller. Unlike the proposed method in multi model control method, a number of constant loads should be considered and corresponding to each load a fixed controller is designed. Experimental results demonstrate the high performance of the adaptive controller under variable loads.

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In this paper, position control is addressed for a pneumatically actuated 6-DoF Gough-Stewart parallel robot. At first, dynamic model of the pneumatic system of each link of the robot which comprises a pneumatic actuator and a proportional electrical control valve is extracted. Unknown parameters of the obtained dynamic model consisting friction force, viscous coefficient and the parameters of the valve are identified by employing an evolutionary algorithm. Then, position control of the robot’s pneumatic actuator is performed based on designing Backstepping-Sliding Mode controller according to the nonlinear dynamic model of the pneumatic system. Moreover, kinematic equations of the 6-DoF parallel robot are achieved and a novel method is proposed, the so-called Geometry-based Quasi-Forward Kinematic, to the end of calculating the position of the end-effector of the robot without using expensive position sensors. Accordingly, kinematic closed-loop control of the parallel robot, which is based on simultaneous joint space and task space control, is investigated for trajectory tracking using potentiometers, a rotation sensor, and based on the computed position of the end-effector by the proposed method. Desired sinusoidal trajectories with pure motions and also complicated trajectories are tracked in which error of positions and rotations are lower than 2 (cm) and 3 (deg), respectively. The results reveal that the trajectory tracking control of the pneumatic 6-DoF Gough-Stewart parallel robot is performed properly based on the proposed control strategies and the novel method for calculating the position of the end-effector.

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In this paper, control position of a pneumatic actuator with the PWM solenoid on/off valves using two different pneumatic circuits performed. After deriving the governing dynamic equations, to investigate the circuit effect on system performance, mentioned two pneumatic circuits are introduced. Then in order to control the position of the pneumatic actuator, for both circuits, sliding mode and proportional-integral-derivative controllers are designed. In proceeding, optimum controller parameters are determined by genetic algorithm to achieve minimum control energy and position error. Finally, by performing simulations in Matlab Simulink, performance of designed controllers with optimal parameters is evaluated and compared in the presence of disturbance. According to the obtained results, by comparing the performance of two circuits, it is observed that the first pneumatic circuit with two solenoid valves can track the high-frequency sine reference input better and more precisely in the presence of a nonlinear sliding mode controller. The position tracking error in low-frequency sine reference input using a classic proportional-integral-derivative controller, for a single-valve pneumatic circuit is considerably less than that of a pneumatic circuit of two valves. This indicates the input-output quasi linear behavior of the pneumatic actuator in a single-valve circuit.