A novel intelligent mechatronic system for hybrid testing

This paper aims to present the results of controlling a novel intelligent mechatronic system that was designed specifically to serve as a sensing and motion system for hybrid testing. The conceptual design was inspired from the Stewart Platform for a two-degree-of-freedom (2DoF) moving platform. This design has resulted in non-linear kinematics, coupled dynamics and an inertial moving platform that attracted model-based control strategies. A novel control technique based on fuzzy-flatness control was selected to meet the multiple simultaneous specification control of linearisation, decoupling and asymptotic tracking. Pole placement control was used to achieve stable tracking while the robustness was guaranteed by implementing a robust fuzzy-logic compensation. Simulation results demonstrated the validity of the proposed approaches with perfect trajectory tracking at different excitation conditions. For the experimental implementation, the real-time constraint was further imposed and the actuators time-delay was compensated for using a forward prediction algorithm based on a fourth-order polynomial extrapolation.