Application of a flexible structure artificial neural network on a servo-hydraulic rotary actuator

In this article the results of the application of a flexible structure artificial neural network for controlling the angular velocity of a servo-hydraulic rotary actuator are discussed. A mathematical model for the system is derived, and a flexible artificial neural network (ANN)-based controller with the feedback error learning method as a learning algorithm is applied to the system. The neural network-based controller has a feed-forward structure and three layers. The flexible bipolar sigmoid function was used as the activation function of the network. The simulation and experimental results show good performance of the developed method in learning the inverse dynamic of the system and controlling the angular velocity of the rotary hydro motor. The advantages of the developed method for servo-hydraulic actuators over other traditional approaches are discussed.