<p dir="ltr">Typically conventional off-highway vehicles used in construction, agricultural, and turf industries are hydraulically actuated to take advantage of hydraulic’s high power density. However, the efficiency of these machines is quite low and with an ongoing trend of electrification, direct electrification would require electric machines to handle all the power and that can be very expensive and not sustainable. With a goal to increase system efficiency and reap the benefits of electrification, a novel Hybrid Hydraulic-Electric Architecture (HHEA) has been developed.</p><p dir="ltr">The HHEA uses a set of common pressure rails to provide the majority of the power via hydraulics and a small electric motor is used to modulate that power for precise control. This paper presents the control strategy for the novel architecture (HHEA). Precise motion control is important for off-road vehicles whose large part of utility depends on the machine being dexterous and performing tasks exactly as commanded. The architecture faces a unique challenge to the motion control due to pressure rail changes which are triggered to minimize system efficiency or to keep the system within the torque capabilities of the electric motor. A Hardware in the loop testbed has been built to test the motion control performance of the architecture. The motion control strategy utilizes two different controllers. A passivity-based backstepping controller is used in between two pressure rail switches and a transition controller is used to handle the event of a pressure rail switch. Using these controllers the HHEA actuator is able to precisely track the desired trajectory under the presence of load and restricted electric motor torque availability.</p>

HIL Testbed and Motion Control Strategy for the Hybrid Hydraulic-Electric Architecture (HHEA)

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/FPST/FPMC2021/volume/85239

2021 ASME/BATH Symposium on Fluid Power and Motion Control (FPMC2021)

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