Real-time application of self-tuning PID in electro-hydraulic actuator

Hydraulic actuators are characterized by their ability to impart large forces at high speeds and are used in many industrial motion systems. The nonlinear properties of hydraulic cylinder had challenged researchers to design a suitable controller for position control, motion control and tracking control. This paper presents the development and implementation of self-tuning fuzzy PID controller in controlling the position variation of electro-hydraulic actuator. The electro-hydraulic system was represented by an ARX model structure obtained through MATLAB System Identification Toolbox. Then, by experiment on a practical electro-hydraulic actuator test-bed, the effectiveness of this control scheme is verified through comparison with simulation using Matlab Simulink environment. The research results show that the self-tuning fuzzy PID controller has good performance based on RMSE index.