Position variable structure control for water hydraulic vane actuator

In the paper a variable structure control (VSC) has been proposed and applied to the position control of a water hydraulic rotary actuator. Based on the model of the water hydraulic vane actuator, the simulation experiments with VSC controller are done and compared with PID controller. Simulation experiment results show that in position control applications, the use of VSC as the controller of the system can improve the dynamical and static state performances of the system. Especially, the VSC system provides higher-precision position as well as stronger robustness to parameters varieties than the PID control system. Also, the chattering has been effectively controlled and reduced in the VSC application by adding a boundary layer. The position control properties of the water hydraulic rotary actuator validate the effectiveness of the proposed VSC method.