Joint torque servo control of electro-hydrostatic actuators for high torque-to-weight ratio robot control

Abstract

This paper proposes joint torque servo control of an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) for effective dynamic control of robot manipulators. In the control design, the fluid parameters are not considered to develop a simple low-level controller used for multi degree-of-freedom (DOF) robot manipulators. Instead, mechanical impedance, which represents the effect of joint velocity on joint torque, is reduced using a disturbance observer. The torque tracking performance of the modified system is then improved by a simple proportional-integral-derivative control. When evaluated on two 1-DOF EHAs, the proposed controller guaranteed robustness to external disturbances and variations in the fluid parameters, even though the fluid parameters are not considered.