Robust control application for a three-axis road simulator

This paper presents the design of a quantitative feedback control system for a three-axis hydraulic road simulator. The road simulator is a multiple input-output (MIMO) system with parameter uncertainties which should be compensated with a robust control method. The objective of the present paper is to reproduce the random input signal or real road vibration signal by three hydraulic cylinders. The replaced m(2) MISO equivalent control system is suggested, which satisfies the design specification of the original mxm MIMO control system by decoupling each of the three axes. Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT) is used to control the simulator. The QFT illustrates a tracking performance of the closed-loop controller with low order transfer function G (s) and pre-filter F (s) having the minimum bandwidth for the uncertain plant with parameter uncertainty. The efficacy of the designed controller is verified through dynamic simulation, which is co-simulated with hydraulic models of Matlab and Adams multi-body. The simulation and the experimental results show that the proposed control technique works well for uncertain hydraulic plant systems.