Impedance Control of Backdrivable Hydraulic Actuation Systems with Explicit Disturbance Estimation

The backdrivable servovalve is a desirable component for force and interaction control of hydraulic actuation systems because it provides direct force generation mechanical impedance reduction by its own inherent backdrivability. However, high parametric uncertainty and friction effects inside the hydraulic actuation system significantly degrade its advantage. To solve this problem, this letter presents a disturbance-adaptive robust internal-loop compensator (DA-RIC) to generate ideal interactive control performance from the backdrivable-servovalve-based system. The proposed control combines a robust internal-loop compensator structure (RIC) with an explicit disturbance estimator designed for asymptotic disturbance tracking, such that the controlled system provide stable and ideal dynamic behavior for impedance control, while completely compensating the disturbance effects. With the aid of a backdrivable servovalve, we show that the proposed control structure can be implemented based on a simplified nominal model, and the controller enables implementation without accurate knowledge of the target system parameters and disturbances. The performance and properties of the proposed controller are verified by simulation and experiments.22Nkc