A high-accuracy trajectory following controller for pneumatic devices

摘要

The use of pneumatic devices is widespreadamong different industrial fields, in tasks like handling orassembly. Pneumatic systems are low-cost, reliable, andcompact solutions. However, its use is typically restricted tosimple tasks due to the poor performance achieved inapplications where accurate motion control is required. Thispaper presents a novel nonlinear controller, using neuralnetwork-based models, that allows the use of commonindustrial servopneumatic components in applicationswhere fine trajectory following tasks is required. Furthermore, several experimental trials show that the system is highly robust to payload variation without any controller retuning.These results encourage the use of pneumatics actuators in a set of applications for which they have not been traditionally considered.