Fuzzy Control Application in Pneumatically Actuated Drives

This work examines the possibility of using fuzzy logic control approach in order to achieve precise position control of a servo pneumatic drive. It is a demanding task to obtain an accurate mathematical model of controlled pneumatic drives due to significant system non-linearities, caused by air compressibility, friction effects and variations of parameters with time. Owing to their non-linear structure with more parameters, fuzzy logic based controller can be suited for control of pneumatically actuated drives. The effectiveness of the fuzzy control strategy is verified by experiments using a pneumatic servo system, which consists of a rodless cylinder controlled by a proportional servo valve.