Investigation of a Digital Hydraulic Actuation System on an Excavator Arm

Abstract

Digital hydraulics is an ongoing trend that offers many interesting advantages and possibilities. Digital refers to that the system output is discrete, e.g. using an on/off valve with only discrete values or a finite amount of flow steps available. The advantages mentioned when compared to analogue systems are better performance, robust and fault tolerant, and amplitude independent bandwidth. On the other side noise and pressure pulsations must be handled, the physical size can be a problem, and the system requires complicated control. When considering control of linear motion, there are mainly two branches, controlling the flow with several parallel connected on/off valves, which generates discrete output flow values, or switching valves, which in theory can generate any mean output flow. The latter only requires one valve for each flow path but the demand for fast valves is very high, while the former requires many valves but avoids high frequent switching. With the introduction of a multi-chamber cylinder, secondary control is now also possible for linear motion. This paper is a first step in the investigation of the system applied to an excavator arm. The cylinder has four chambers, each with different area. Three pressure lines are used and a valve-pack of 27 on/off valves. The valve-pack connects the three pressure lines with each chamber generating 81 available force steps. The scope has been to start out with relative simple control of the velocity of the cylinder. To handle unnecessary switching of valves, different penalty strategies were tested. The results are promising where relatively smooth control could be achieved at the same time challenges with the system were identified. Next step is to investigate the force transients due to different capacitance in all four chambers as well as mode control for better accuracy. Energy potential compared to original system remains to investigate as well.