A Mathematical Model for a Non-Linear Pneumatic Actuation System to Control Dynamic Pressure

Abstract

A pneumatic system is known to be able to sustain a large payload and deliver characteristic “soft stiffness” and an active technique by a proportional valve could be easily adopted without the design modification of a passive one. For these reasons, a pneumatic actuation system is frequently cited in the literature as an attractive actuation system for use in a high-performance vibration isolator. However, this obscures the challenges of using such a system to attain precise dynamic pressure control with the nonlinear characteristics of a pneumatic actuation system, which consists of a proportional valve, a tube line and a chamber. Therefore, prior to applying a pneumatic actuation system to improve the operating environment of a given system, a detailed examination of the pneumatic system should be undertaken. In this paper, a mathematical model for a pneumatic actuation system consisting of a proportional valve, an air transmission pipe and a chamber is proposed and, to describe the dynamic characteristics of the pneumatic actuation system using the model, experimental measurements and examination of the given model are carried out in accordance with the effects of the components.