Iterative learning control of electro-hydraulic proportional feeding system in slotting machine for metal bar cropping

A non-linear method, iterative learning control (ILC), is proposed to control the electro-hydraulic feeding process of a new slotting machine. The method attempts to acquire high precision of feeding length and trapezoid feedrate, whereas the complexity of iterative learning control algorithm does not increase much more than that of industrial PID controller. After an analysis of the two-way proportional feeding system, a non-linear dynamical mathematic model with system delay, saturation and dead-zone is developed. The computer flowrate control and the ILC controller are investigated in detail. PID controller, ILC of displacement and ILC of feedrate are compared with the dynamical model under the same desired trajectory. It is experimentally found that the proposed control scheme is more effective to improve the tracking accuracy of hydraulic feeding system of the slotting machine than that of fuzzy PID controller.