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Research and development of a novel pneumatic-electric hybrid actuator

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Abstract

A novel pneumatic-electric hybrid actuator is studied and developed to enable precise positioning within a cylinder stroke in industrial automation. The proposed actuator will also allow engineers to overcome the defects of bias torque and structural coupling in the parallel type of pneumatic-electric hybrid actuators. The novel hybrid actuator consists of a coaxial cylinder layout, the motor lead screw pair, and the position sensor; a serial driving pattern is applied. A special reconfigurable positioning structure is designed for both the fixed and moving module; therefore, a decoupling motion can be achieved for the fast pneumatic motion and the electric precise fine-tuning motion without interference. In this paper, the authors presented the structure of this novel pneumatic-electric hybrid actuator and the accompanying mathematical model for pneumatic-electrical driving. Additionally, the control strategy with proportional-fuzzy mode and the subsection frequency control mode are presented. Experimental results show that the pneumatic-electric hybrid actuator has satisfying motion characteristics, including high speed, low overshoot, and small load sensitivity. Its positioning accuracy is ±0.01 mm, with a positioning time within 2 s, which is better than that of current pneumatic localizable actuators and pneumatic-electric hybrid actuators.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 21009, China

    Jiabin Yang & Xiaoning Li

Authors
  1. Jiabin Yang
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  2. Xiaoning Li
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaoning Li.

Additional information

Jiabin Yang, born in 1990, received the B.S. in 2014 at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China. His research interests include pneumatic control technology, mechanical manufacturing and automation.

Xiaonig Li, born in 1957, is currently a Professor at School of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China. He received the Ph.D. in Mechanical and Electronic Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China in 1989. His research interests include modeling, simulation, and control for advanced manufacturing systems, and pneumatic control technology, etc.

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Yang, J., Li, X. Research and development of a novel pneumatic-electric hybrid actuator. J Mech Sci Technol 35, 2593–2603 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-021-0530-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-021-0530-3

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