Adaptive Control for Heavy Earthmoving Equipment

The demand for increased performance of heavy earthmoving equipment has spurred the development of computer control for machinery using fluid power systems. Application of standard automatic control components to these systems provides the opportunity to implement advanced control approaches that reduce the operator workload and improve performance. In this work, closed-loop control is applied to the joints of a typical three-link digging device. Because the changing configuration of the device greatly changes the dynamic characteristics, an adaptive control algorithm is introduced to modify the control parameters to maintain consistent performance of the implement.