Pulse Number Modulation Research Articles

A Novel Equivalent Continuous Metering Control With a Uniform Switching Strategy for Digital Valve System

Pulse number modulation (PNM) combined with pulse width modulation (PWM) control is an effective solution to improve the resolution of digital valve systems. However, the numerous discrete variables that use parallel <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</small> / <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off</small> valves cause difficult control coordination and uneven switching. To address this issue, this article defines the equivalent spool displacement of the digital flow control unit by the number of PNM-controlled valves and the duty cycle of PWM-controlled valves to replace multiple discrete variables and develops the equivalent continuous metering control method. Furthermore, a uniform switching control strategy is proposed for the PWM-controlled valve using a uniformly distributed permutation for each <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</small> / <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off</small> valve. The proposed control methods are verified by simulation on the built mathematical model of the equal-coded digital valve system. Experimental results for the displacement control of a hydraulic cylinder at 1 rad/s show that the average error of the equivalent continuous metering control is about 0.236 mm and the dispersion index reaches 20%, while the uniform switching control strategy achieves 80% with an average error of 0.215 mm. Simulated and experimental results demonstrate that the equivalent continuous metering control with a uniform switching strategy can almost evenly distribute switching numbers without compromising the accuracy of the displacement control.

Investigation of a Digital Hydraulic Valve Operated by Servo Motors

This paper describes a new type of digital hydraulic valve run by two servo motors. Digital hydraulics is a cutting-edge technology, which saves more exhausted energy than conventional hydraulic valves. It includes conventional valves, but its working principle is different. Similar or different size valves constitute a digital hydraulic valve assembly. When the assigned valves are opened, a certain amount of flow is obtained from the output of the valve assembly. To control a digital hydraulic valve, Pulse Number Modulation (PNM) Control technique is used for equal valve flow rates, while Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) is used for different valve flow rates. Valves are exerted by independently launched electric coils. Previous studies used controller board and external power booster circuits for coils. In this study, a new type of digital hydraulic valve is designed, manufactured, and tested with the PNM method. The studied valve body has two different valve groups. Every group includes 16 equal valves and 1 camshaft rotated by 1 servo motor. The servo motors are controlled by a PLC. The calculated performance index is found to be 5.1ms which is similar to the results of previous studies. The experimental results showed that the cam and servo motor controlled digital hydraulics is applicable to variable speed control hydraulic systems.

Using a Neural Network to Minimize Pressure Spikes for Binary-coded Digital Flow Control Units

A unique method of improving energy efficiency in fluid power systems is called digital flow control. In this paper, binary coding control is utilized. Although this scheme is characterized by a small package size and low energy consumption, it is influenced by higher pressure peaks and larger transient uncertainty than are other coding schemes, e.g., Fibonacci coding and pulse number modulation, consequently resulting in poor tracking accuracy.&#x0D; This issue can be solved by introducing a delay in the signal opening/ closing of the previous or subsequent valve, thus providing sufficient time for state alteration and valve processes. In a metering-in velocity control circuit, a feedforward neural network controller was used to create artificial delays according to the pressure difference over the digital flow control unit (DFCU) valves. The delayed signal samples fed to the controller were acquired through the genetic algorithm method, and the analysis was performed with MATLAB software.

Investigation on positioning control strategy and switching optimization of an equal coded digital valve system

This article concerns high accuracy positioning control with switching optimization for an equal coded digital valve system. Typically, pulse number modulation control cannot realize micro-positioning due to the characteristics of step-wise flow variation, therefore, a new position controller consisting of a model-based pulse number modulation and a differential pulse width modulation strategy is proposed to control the position of a hydraulic cylinder at high and low velocity cases, respectively. In addition, in order to solve several problems caused by the pulse number modulation and differential pulse width modulation, such as increased number of switchings and large difference among number of switchings of valves, a switching optimization consisting of a switching cost function, a circular buffer and a circular switching method is proposed. An adaptive weight of the switching cost function is proposed for the first time to reduce the total number of switchings under different pressure differences and its design criterion is presented. A circular buffer and a new circular switching method are used to improve the degree of equal distribution of switchings when the pulse number modulation and differential pulse width modulation are used, respectively. Comparative experimental results indicated that the average and the minimum positioning error for the proposed controller are only 10 and 1 μm, respectively. The number of switchings and the degree of equal distribution of switchings are significantly optimized. Moreover, the pressure fluctuations caused by the proposed controller remain acceptable.

Equal Coded Digital Hydraulic Valve System – Improving Tracking Control with Pulse Frequency Modulation

Previous research on digital fluid power indicates down-scaling to be beneficial to the characteristics of digital valves. This theoretical aspect yields to use equal size on/off valves in digital hydraulic valve systems. A simple miniaturized on/off valve, having orifice diameter of 0.7mm, have been developed to study the feasibility of this approach. A manifold manufacturing technology also has been developed to facilitate a compact framework for the valve system containing dozens of the miniature valves. The first equal coded valve system prototype contains 16 miniature valve prototypes. A natural modulation method for an equal coded valve system is Pulse Number Modulation (PNM), where the output depends on the number of activated valves. With this modulation method, resolution of the output is equivalent to the number of the valves in the control edge. Limited resolution hampers the tracking control performance especially at low velocity where small steps in flow rate are required. The main purpose of this paper is to study the feasibility of Pulse Frequency Modulation (PFM) to improve the controllability of the equal coded valve system at the velocities below the minimum velocity of PNM control. Poor controllability at low velocities is one of the main challenges of the digital hydraulic valve systems. Characteristics of the PFM method are analysed and an experimental study is carried out to measure the improvement of the PFM method on the tracking control performance. The study indicates that the PFM method is an effective way to improve tracking control performance at low velocity.

Programmed driving waveforms for quick-response liquid powder displays

A low optical contrast ratio is the major drawback of quick-response liquid powder displays (QRLPDs). In this paper, the electro-optical response of the QRLPD is analyzed, and better optical contrast is found to be obtained if the display is driven by pulse number modulation (PNM). However, PNM driving requires a longer driving duration. To achieve a successful trade-off between image contrast and driving duration, the QR-LPD requires a customized driving waveform. A programmed driving waveform and a design process are proposed. Experimental results show that the programmed driving waveform reduces the driving duration by up to 36.5% compared to conventional methods.

다중점 위상검출기를 이용한 클럭 및 데이터 복원회로 설계

본 논문에서는 다중점 위상검출기(Phase detector: PD)를 이용한 1Gbps 클럭 및 데이터 복원(Clock and data recovery: CDR)회로를 제안한다. 제안된 위상검출기는 데이터의 천이 모서리와 클럭의 상승/하강 모서리 3점을 비교하여 up/down 신호를 생성한다. 기존의 위상검출기 회로는 클럭 주기의 배수 만큼의 up/down 펄스폭을 갖는 출력으로 전압제어발진기(Voltage controlled oscillator: VCO)를 조절하는 펄스폭변조(Pulse width modulation: PWM)방식을 사용한다. 제안된 위상검출기 회로는 클럭 반주기만큼의 up/down 펄스폭을 갖는 출력으로 전압제어발진기를 조절하는 펄스수변조(Pulse number modulation: PNM)방식을 사용하여, 전압제어발진기를 미세하게 조절함으로써 지터를 줄일 수 있다. 제안된 위상검출기를 이용한 클럭 및 데이터 복원회로는 1Gbps의 전송률을 갖는 231-1개의 랜덤 데이터를 이용하여 테스트되었고, 지터와 전력소비는 각각 7.36ps와 12mW로 저전력, 적은 지터의 특징을 보였다. 제안된 회로는 0.18um CMOS 공정에서 1.8V 전원으로 설계되었다. The 1Gbps clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit using the proposed multi-point phase detector (PD) is presented. The proposed phase detector generates up/down signals comparing 3-point that is data transition point and clock rising/falling edge. The conventional PD uses the pulse width modulation (PWM) that controls the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) using the width of a pulse period's multiple. However, the proposed PD uses the pulse number modulation (PNM) that regulates the VCO with the number of half clock cycle pulse. Therefore the proposed PD can controls VCO preciously and reduces the jitter. The CDR circuit is tested using 1Gbps <TEX>$2^{31}-1$</TEX> pseudo random bit sequence (PRBS) input data. The designed CDR circuit shows that is capable of recovering clock and data at rates of 1Gbps. The recovered clock jitter is 7.36ps at 1GHz and the total power consumption is about 12mW. The proposed circuit is implemented using a 0.18um CMOS process under 1.8V supply.

Gray-level disturbance in pulse number modulation and its reduction algorithm

An effective algorithm to reduce gray-level disturbance (GLD) in pulse number modulation is proposed. GLD occurs when moving image sequences are presented by plasma display panels (PDPs) or digital micromirror devices (DMDs), which use pulse number modulation to express gray levels. We first develop a systematic model for GLD, and then show that GLD can be eliminated if the light emission pattern of every gray level has the same shape. Based on the ideal condition, we design subfield and driving vectors. The lexicographically largest vector is employed as the subfield vector, since it can flexibly control the shapes of light emission patterns. Then, three methods are proposed to determine driving vectors: the zero-order, first-order, and tree methods. The zero-order method has the lowest implementation complexity, whereas the tree method reduces GLD most effectively. The first-order method offers a good tradeoff between implementation complexity and disturbance reduction capability. Simulation results demonstrate that these methods suppress GLD effectively and provide good moving image quality.

Sub-field sequence optimization for plasma displays based on weight-modulated sub-field histogram

Plasma displays represent gray levels by pulse number modulation technique, which results in unfavorable dynamic false contour (DFC) on moving images. The paper proposes a method to reduce the DFC by optimizing the sub-field sequence. Sub-fields are arranged according to the descending order of the weight-modulated sub-field histogram. This sub-field arrangement has a quasi-stretched-out property. Simulation results show that the method provides a good solution for both reducing the DFC and improving the gray level expression.

A look‐up table based error diffusion algorithm for dynamic false contour reduction of plasma display panels

PDP(Plasma display panel) represents the gray levels by the pulse number modulation technique that results in undesirable dynamic false contours on moving images. This paper proposes a LUT(Look‐up table) based error diffusion algorithm for reduction of the dynamic false contours. A quantitative measure of the dynamic false contours is defined first. The measure of the dynamic false contours is calculated through simulation of every gray level combination of two consecutive frames. Based on the calculated measures, a modified gray level for a pair of gray levels of two consecutive frames is chosen to reduce the dynamic false contours. The chosen gray levels serve as contents of a gray level conversion LUT. Given a pair of gray levels of two consecutive frames, the gray level of current frame is modified based on the gray level conversion LUT. The new gray level is displayed on PDP. An error diffusion algorithm is, then, applied to compensate for the differences in the gray levels.

Improved PWM control for GTO inverters with pulse number modulation

A pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter using GTOs is one of the promising power converters for AC motor drives. There are, however, still some unsolved problems with GTO inverters: (1) the modulation factor of conventional GTO inverters is limited to about 0.8 in order to maintain the minimum on-time of every GTO. If a modulation factor of 1.0 is possible in the bridge-type inverter, the output capacity would be larger in proportion to the modulation factor. The pulse number modulation (PNM) is proposed as an effective measure for this modulation factor improvement; and (2) the minimum on-time of a GTO brings about uncontrollability for a low voltage reference in the neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter. The authors propose a new procedure using the PNM technique to solve this voltage uncontrollability. The PNM method contributes to make an equivalent unity modulation factor in PWM inverters and to linearize voltage control characteristics in NPC inverters. >

A Discretely Adaptive Delta Modulation Codec

A discretely variable slope delta modulation (DVSD) codec is described, which is suitable for integrated circuit realization. The step size is varied by a pulse number modulation method that does not require a precision digital-to-analog conversion circuit. An adaptation algorithm is discussed, taking into consideration the effect of transmission errors. The quantizer and integrator portion has been fabricated on a monolithic chip using MOS technology. Results obtained from an experimental 32 kbit/s codec demonstrate its excellent performance.