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Adaptive Inverse Control of Two-axis Hydraulic Shaking Table Based

on RLS Filter
YANG Ningning, GUAN Guangfeng, WANG Haitao, XIONG Wei
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, P.R.China
E-mail: gfguan@126.com

Abstract: An adaptive inverse controller in the out loop, which are applied as an outer control loop around the inner control loop of
the two-axis angle shaking table, are presented to provide increased control accuracy, stability and reproducibility in applications
where inner-control-loop methods prove to be inadequate. Two kinds of adaptive algorithms LMS (Least-mean-square) and RLS
(recursive-least-square) are illustrated. Simulation results show that the RLS algorithm, which is finally adopted in control system,
exhibits fast convergence compared with LMS. Test results obtained in acceleration tracking experiment show the effectiveness of the
adaptive inverse controller based on RLS algorithm.
Key Words: Electro-hydraulic shaking table, adaptive filters, RLS algorithm, LMS algorithm, adaptive inverse control.

achieve acceleration and velocity control [6]. Fig.1 is the

1 Introduction principle of TVC.
Vibration testing provides a valid means of evaluating
device or product capability in an intended environment [1].  Kv
acc 1 dis
The electro-hydraulic angle shaking table is used for 2
K ar s  K vr s  K dr s2 2[
reproducing power spectrum or waveform, reproducing s2  v f s  d f s(  h s  1)
 Zh 2 Zh
real vibration environment in laboratory [2]. Control
technology is the key to random vibration control of Three-variable
input filter feed-forward
shaking table control system. Lots of experiments indicate K af s 2  K vf s  K df
controller
that the traditional servo control can not meet the control
demand. In this case, adaptive inverse control (AIC) is
proposed to add in the outside of the traditional servo Three-variable Three-variable
input controller feedback controller
control system to achieve high control precision [3]. Two
kinds of most commonly used adaptive filtering algorithms
are least-mean-square (LMS) and recursive-least-square Fig.1: Three-variable-control of shaking table
(RLS) [4]. Compared to LMS algorithm, the RLS
algorithm exhibits extremely fast convergence, much stable TVC consists of three-variable input controller and
ability [5]. Besides, due to the difficulty in coefficient three-variable feedback controller. Three-variable input
adjustment of LMS filter while in vibration experiment, the controller is used to expand frequency bandwidth and
test usually adopts RLS filter to improve control precision achieve acceleration control. Three-variable feedback
of waveform replication, to realize better control capacity. controller is used to improve damping ratio of hydraulic
In this paper, a traditional servo controller, system [7].
three-variable-control (TVC), is considered as inner loop The transfer function of three-variable feedback
controller and introduced first. Then an adaptive algorithm controller is given by [8]
RLS (recursive-least-squares) is illustrated. The S ( s ) K af s 2  K vf s  K df (1)
simulations based on Matlab/Simulink are run to test the The feedback factors can be calculated by
convergence of the two adaptive algorithms. After that, an
adaptive inverse control system based on RLS is designed.
­ ZrZnc 2
° K df 2
Finally, the vibration test results testified the effectiveness ° K v Zh
of adaptive inverse control. °° 2[ 1 1 (2)
® K vf k df ( nc  ) 
2 Three-variable-control of Shaking Table Znc Zr Kv
°
Considering the smaller damping, instability of ° 2[ 1 2[ h
hydraulic position servo system, TVC is designed at first. ° K af K df ( nc  )
¯° ZrZnc Znc 2 K v Zh
TVC algorithm is proposed in the 1970’s which is mainly
used to overcome the drawback of lower bandwidth, where K df , K vf , K af ,are controller coefficient of
smaller damping of position servo control system and three-variable feedback controller. Zh denotes nature
frequency of hydraulic system, [h denotes damping ratio,
K v denotes open-loop gain of proportional control system,

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of Zr denotes desired bandwidth. Znc 1.2Zh , [nc 0.7 .
China (grant No. 51105047) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (grant No. 2011QN131, 2011JC032, 2012TD011, The transfer function of three-variable feedback
3132013311). controller can be expressed as

138
 T ( s) K ar s 2  K vr s  K dr (3)
x (n ) y (n )
Parameters of three-variable feed-forward controller are Transversal filter
/
obtained as w(n )
­ K dr K df 'w(n ) 
°° e(n )
® K vr K df ˜ 2[ nc / Znc (4)
Adaptive algorithm  d (n )
° 2 RLS
¯° K ar K df / Z nc
Fig.3: Scheme of RLS adaptive filter
The transfer function of the input filter is given by
1 (5) The RLS adopts least squares criterion which is obtained
I ( s) 2
s  vf s  d f based on minimum mean square error. The difference
The input filter factors can be calculate by the formula compared with LMS is that the observation data length is
variable when seeking square error. RLS multiply the
­°d f Z02 observation data with weighted factors respectively along
® (6)
°̄v f 2[ 0Z0 with time sequence. RLS is to minimize a cost
function C by appropriately selection the filter
where Z0 is the initial frequency of the acceleration coefficients w  n  and updating the filter as new data
servo system, [0 denotes damping ratio. arrives. The cost function C is given by
n
3 RLS Adaptive Filter 2
C ( wn ) ¦O
i 0
n i
e (i ) (7)
An adaptive filter is a filter that self-adjusts its current
filter parameters by using former gained parameters which where 0  O d 1 denotes "forgetting factor" which gives
is driven by an error signal, to obtain optimal filtering [9]. exponentially less weight to older error samples.
The characteristic of adaptive filers changes by the
Error e(n ) is defined as follow
adaptive algorithm through adjusting filter coefficient.
Fig.2 shows the structure of the adaptive filter. e( n ) d ( n )  W H ( n-1) X ( n ) (8)
Output signal y (n ) is generated through the parameters The minimized cost function is determined by the weight
adjustable digital filter. Error signal e(n ) , which is coefficients W ( n ) , which is continually updated by a
determined by the difference between y ( n ) and d ( n ) , is recursive solution,
used to adjust parameters of filter by adopting adaptive W ( n ) W ( n  1)  K ( n )e( n ) (9)
algorithm. The goal of adaptive filter is to minimize mean X T ( n ) P ( n  1)
square error. K (n) (10)
O  X T ( n ) P( n  1) X ( n )
where K (n ) denotes gain vector.
y (n ) The summary of RLS algorithm is shown below [14].
x (n ) Digital filter
 e(n ) The solution w(n ) that minimizes the cost function

d (n ) C can be computed recursively as follows
/
Start with: w(0) 0 , p (0) G 1 I , where I is the
Adaptive algorithm
identity matrix of rank p  1 ,and iterate
Fig.2: Theory of adaptive filter for i t 0 ,computation
˄1˅updating gain vector˖
The commonly used adaptive algorithms mainly include X T ( n ) P ( n  1)
LMS and RLS algorithms. The two algorithms are built on K (n)
the different optimization criteria. The LMS algorithm is to O  X T ( n ) P( n  1) X ( n )
minimize the mean square error between output signal and ˄2˅filtering output˖ y ( n ) W T ( n-1) X ( n )
desired signal [10,11], while the RLS algorithm is to ˄3˅errors estimate˖ e( n ) d (n)  y (n)
minimize the sum of weighted square of error [12].
˄4˅weights vector adapt˖
3.1 The RLS Algorithm W ( n ) W ( n  1)  K ( n )e( n ))
The RLS algorithm recursively finds the filter ˄5˅inverse matrix update˖
coefficients that minimize a weighted least squares cost P(n) O 1[ P( n  1)  K ( n ) X T ( n ) P( n  1)]
function relating to the input signalsˈwhich is in contrast
At each iteration, it holds that w( n ) minimizes formula
with LMS that aim to reduce the mean square error [13].
Compared to LMS algorithm, RLS have a faster (7), where P ( n ) is inverse matrix of autocorrelation matrix
convergence speed. Fig.3 is the scheme of RLS adaptive Pxx ( n ) .
filter.

139
3.2 Simulation Results
In this section, adaptive modelling based on LMS
algorithm and RLS algorithm is simulated respectively to
compare their capability. The simulation model of adaptive
modelling of RLS in Matlab/Simulink is shown in Fig.4.

Fig.6: Square of overall error of RLS algorithm

The simulation results of adaptive modelling of RLS

Fig.4: Simulation models of adaptive modelling algorithm and LMS algorithm show that both of the two
algorithms can keep the square errors at a relatively low
In the simulation model, the adaptive filter can be either level after a period of simulation time. RLS algorithm can
RLS or LMS. The TVC of hydraulic shaking table is the achieve this within a much shorter time. This means that it
one that need to be control and identified. The RLS filter has a faster coverage rate than LMS algorithm.
can change into LMS filter for the comparison of their
capability.
Table.1 shows the detailed parameters setting of LMS
and RLS in simulation.
Table1:Parameters Setting of Two Filters

Filter N P O
LMS 32 1e-1
RLS 32 0.99

Simulation results are shown in the figures below. Fig 5

and Fig.6 show the square error of the two algorithms.
Fig.7 is tracking performance of model identification with
RLS and LMS algorithms.

Fig.7: Tracking performance of LMS and RLS

Fig 7 indicates that RLS algorithm shows a better

tracking ability in adaptive modelling progress. The output
signal can catch up with input signal in a quite short time
compare with LMS algorithm.
Both of LMS and RLS algorithms can be applied to
plant identification. Simulation results show that RLS has a
better tracking ability and a much higher adaptive rate. In
addition, due to the difficulty in coefficient adjustment of
LMS in experiment and the good stability of RLS, RLS is
often adopted in real-time system recognition. In
conclusion, RLS algorithm is more suitable for the
real-time test of two-axis hydraulic angle shaking table.
4 Adaptive Inverse Control Based On RLS
Fig.5: Square of overall error with LMS algorithm Adaptive Filter
As is mentioned above, traditional servo control strategy
is not enough to meet precisely control requirement, so a
compensation method is proposed based on adaptive
inverse control theory. The method can maintain the
shaking table acceleration waveform very close to the

140
target one. Adaptive inverse control uses an approximate Adaptive inverse modelling is also known as inverse
inverse model of shaking table system as controller to model identification. An adaptive inverse model which can
make the shaking table output closely track the reference be used as feed-forward controller is built in the second
input [15]. The basic principle of adaptive inverse control step. The RLS filter is reconstructed by copying its
is to drive the plant with a signal from a controller whose tap-weights in this step. The modelling signal drives the
transfer function is the inverse of the plant transfer function. rebuilt RLS filter1 and the reference model. The output of
Fig 8 shows the structure of adaptive inverse control. rebuilt filter1 drives RLS filter 2. The difference between
filter2 output and reference model output determine error
Command Plant Plant signal. The RLS filter is adapted itself to minimize the
input input output mean square of system error and obtain model-reference
Controller Plant inverse of the system.
Step 3 Adaptive Inverse Control System, which is shown
in Fig.11.
Error Output
Adaptive algorithm ™ signal
 Input
signal
Copy RLS Three-variable
Fig.8: Basic concept of adaptive inverse control filter 2 Control
RLS filter 2

In this system, the plant is usually unknown or time error 

varying. The error signal which is the difference between ™
plant output and command input is used to adjust the Reference modle 
controller’s coefficient by adopting an adaptive algorithm.
Fig.11: Adaptive inverse control
This controller has adjustable parameters can adapt it’s
parameters by the error signal to create a true plant inverse
[16]. In the third step, an adaptive inverse control system can
In the test, a random vibration adaptive inverse be built by copying the inverse model and putting into the
controller based on RLS filter is designed. The RLS feed-forward channel as the controller. The cascade of
adaptive filter is used to model identification, inverse controller and the hydraulic system would thereby have
modelling on-line. A model-reference adaptive inverse combined transfer function matching the reference model.
control system of RLS is designed for vibration test. An
adaptive inverse model is built in three steps [17]. 5 Experimental Research
Step 1 Model Identification, which is shown in Fig.9. 5.1 Shaking Table and Test System

Input
The vibration test device is two-axis hydraulic angle
signal shaking table which is shown in Fig.12. and Fig.13.
Three-variable Control
Of Shaking Table 
err
RLS ™

RLS Adaptive filter 1

Fig.9: Adaptive modelling

Adaptive modelling, which is also called model

identification, is to make an adaptive model of the system
which should capture the dynamics of the system well Fig.12: Two-axis hydraulic angle shaking table
enough. The RLS filter1 can adapt itself to identify a match
model to TVC of shaking table.
Step 2 Inverse Model Identification, which is shown in Y
Fig.10.
Output signal X
0.8m
deling signal
RLS filter 1 RLS adaptive filter 2
Reconstruction

err 
RLS ™ 0.7m

Reference modle
Fig.13: Brief view of hydraulic angle shaking table
Fig.10: Adaptive inverse modelling

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 The test device is used to reproduce random vibration The vibration test below is executed according to the
signal. The shaking table can realize two rotation axes process above.
which are denoted as Rx and R y . The frequency bands of
5.2 Test and Result
two rotation axes ranges from 0.5Hz to 80 Hz.
Although much research has been devoted to the The model of adaptive inverse control and TVC control
analysis and design a controller based on a plant model, the system which are built on host PC is downloaded to target
controller still has to be connected to actual plant. A rapid PC and run vibration test.
prototype is a quick way to validate the controller code by Fig.15 shows the real-time online testing of amplitude
executing it with the actual plant, sensors and actuators, or frequency response characteristics of R y which is based
other combination of these components[18]. In this paper, on Labview/Frequency Response Function module.
the vibration test system is built based on XPC target for X-coordinate denotes the frequency Hz, Y-coordinate
rapid prototyping. The XPC target box is used to denotes the amplitude-frequency characteristics, dB.
implement adaptive inverse control for the shaking table.
Monitoring system runs on the host PC. Host PC works
with the code generated from the Simulink application and
a compiler to build the real-time target application which
can run in real-time on target PC once it is downloaded to
target PC [19]. The host-target communication can realize
through TCP/IP communication protocols. Once real-time
application has been downloaded to target PC, it can be
used to control the vibration of the two-axis shaking table.
Fig.14 shows the real-time test system of hydraulic shaking
table developed with XPC target.

Fig.15: Acceleration amplitude frequency response characteristics

of Ry

The figure shows that the amplitude frequency response

characteristic of the FRF has large deviation to 0 dB in the
frequency bandwidth of the system. The control signals
would have great bias relative to the reference with only
TVC.
The task of the adaptive inverse control algorithm is to
compensate the input signals and generate the desired
responses. Fig.16 and Fig.17 show the tracking
performance results of hydraulic shaking table. The
Fig.14: Vibration test system based on XPC frequency band of input signal ranges from 5 to 30Hz.
In the real-time system, control model of hydraulic
system is developed with Matlab/Simulink in host PC, then
the control model is downloaded to target PC which is
connected to signal conditioning unit through I/O ports.
Data acquisition can be realized by using signal
conditioning unit, in which sensor signals must be filtered
to be suitable for analog-to-digital conversion. Servo valve
controller is a kind of internal controller, together with
displacement of main valve which is measured by internal
displacement sensor form a position close loop. Power
amplifier is used to convert signal to power driven signal to
control servo valve which is used to drive hydraulic
actuator. The position signal which is collected by internal
placement sensor is converted to voltage signals feed back
to servo valve controller. Position, velocity and
acceleration information of hydraulic shaking table is
collected by sensors that transmission to signal
conditioning unit. Fig.16: Tracking performance of feedback control

142

Fig.17: Tracking performance with adaptive inverse control
Fig.16 shows the tracking performance of vibration test
without adaptive inverse control. As is mentioned above,
the control performance of servo control can not meet the
demand of precise control. The tracking error which is used
to test the tracking performance of the system is given by
[20].
max input  output
emax
max input
emax exceeds 135% due to the limitative control capacity
of TVC control as shown in Fig 16. The tracking
performance is improved significantly after using adaptive
inverse control system which is illustrated in Fig 17.
emax has been controlled within 32%.
The adaptive inverse control system based on RLS
shows a much better tracking performance.
6 Conclusion
An adaptive inverse control system based on RLS is
designed outside the TVC control to improve control
ability. LMS and RLS algorithms are used separately to
identify the plant model. Simulation results show that RLS
has a better tracking ability and a much higher adaptive
rate than LMS. The vibration test in Ry of hydraulic angle
shaking table which is built based on Matlab/XPC illustrate
the effectiveness of adaptive inverse control based on RLS
adaptive filter.
A more general type of vibration test of structures
requires the use of simultaneous excitation with multiple
inputs. The multi-input multi-output adaptive inverse
control remains as future work.
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