A Self-Oscillating Adaptive Hydraulic Servo

摘要

Improved technology in the guidance and control fields however continues to demand more and more from the servo system. To meet this ever increasing need the servo designer is forced to develop new hardware or to find ways of improving the performance of that which is available. One approach aimed at simpler and higher performance systems is the introduction of intentional non-linearities. A promising system of this type is one wherein the usual proportional amplifier is replaced by an element having two stable states, fully on in each of two directions (i.e., bi-stable). This control technique has recently been applied to hydraulic servos. The results of studies conducted to date indicate this as a practical means of significantly extending the performance capability of currently available hardware. In addition to providing greatly improved response a number of other benefits accrue from bi-stable operation including adaptivity, an inherent ability of the loop to compensate for parameter variations within itself. All of these benefits have been achieved with off-the-shelf hardware.