International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol:18 No:05
Force control for electro-hydraulic servo actuator
used for a humanoid robotic arm
A.Abdellatif*, Tan Quang DUONG*, S.ALFAYAD*, Olivier BRUNEAU*
*Laboratoire d’ingénierie des systèmes de Versailles, Université Paris-Saclay, 78140 Vélizy, Paris, France
Abstract—Due to the great power of hydraulic system
actuators, the control of electro-hydraulic actuators has been an
important and ever developing point of research in the field of
humanoid robots. But due to the non-linearities of the hydraulic
systems, It is very difficult to implement either motion or force
controllers on the hydraulic actuators experimentally before
the mechanism is modeled and simulated. This is due safety
reasons and complex control issues. So, taking into account
the humanoid robot HYDROïD, this paper presents the design
of PID position and force control algorithms, tested on an
electro-hydraulic servo actuator. This actuator is one of the
actuators present on the robotic arm of HYDROïD. The virtual
model of the system is built through co-simulation between
ADAMS [1] and EASY5 [2] software. The output results were
later validated using hardware implementation.
Index Terms—Humanoid Robot, HYDROïD, Force Control,
PID Control, Hydraulic systems.
I. I NTRODUCTION
For decades, advancement of robots has been proven by
the efforts and aspiration of the human being in making a
robot to be a real human companion in life [3]. Humanoid
robots, in particular, can be used in assisting aging humans
and children, replacing humans in hazardous environments
and as a test-bed for new prosthesis and or-thesis devices.
Hence, there have been a constant need for a convenient
actuator for the joints of humanoid robots enabling a precise
and powerful actions in addition to a safe and compliance
motion.
Actuation of the humanoid robots have become one of
the biggest challenges in robotics. Demanding performances
in actuation became needed to enhance the autonomy of
humanoid robots. Within this field, essential and desirable
properties for actuators are required which include: 1) high
power to mass ratio; 2) ability to produce high torque at
low speed; 3) high integrated mechanism as it could occupy
reduced volume or what can be called high power to volume
ratio; 4) human-like movements; 5) for safety reasons, the
actuator must also ensure active compliance of the robot for
safe interaction with humans [4].
Nowadays, actuation of humanoid robots depends mainly
on two disciplines. Electric actuation, which is for humanoid
robots like LOLA [5], HRP4 [6], and REEM-B [7]. It has
several advantages as it is low in cost and can be easily
used and controlled. But its main problem appears while
connecting the electric motor to the load, where the limitation
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of the gearbox torque and the inability to produce an
instantaneous high torque without using a large sized motor.
The other actuation discipline is using hydraulic power. This
technology is characterized by its high power to weight ratio,
high power to volume index, high durability, producing large
forces at high speeds and its high holding torque serve as
an interesting factors in humanoid robots actuation. Some of
global known humanoid robots like ATLAS [8], SARCOS[9],
HYQ[10] and the underdevelopment HYDROïD [11] are
actuated hydraulically.
So, in traditional terms, the robot must perform tedious and
repetitive tasks with great speed and accuracy [13]. In which,
the repetition of tasks and the controllable environment, the
position and force controlled robotic manipulators should
trace the predefined joint trajectories with ease. Hence,
precise interaction with humans and objects, the desire for a
force controlled actuator would be of a great necessity.
But unfortunately, the dynamic characteristics of hydraulic
actuated systems makes it very difficult for such type of
control, due to the highly non-linear dynamics of such
systems. This makes the force controlled actuators would
have always limitations in the form of impedance, friction and
bandwidth. This limits the traditional linear controllers and
makes the electro-hydraulic actuator control a major point of
research. However, several strategies have been introduced
to work around the force control deficiencies of the electro-
hydraulic actuator. T. H. Lambert[12] derived the nonlinear
equations representing the hydraulic servos and showed the
assumptions necessary for linearizing such equations using
analog computation. Such work, directed the attention to the
influence of the hydraulic parameters on the nonlinear closed
loop behaviors. After that, Liu[14] proposed a mathematical
model for a typical servo system and exposed the nonlinear
parameters with a compensation adaptive algorithm [15].
C.L. Hwang and C.H. Lan [16] succeeded in eliminating
the non-linear behaviors of the hydraulic servo-mechansims
through variable structure system controller algorithm. While,
Sohl and Bobrow[17] used a lyapunov derived function as
a controller design methodology to provide a stable force
control with position tracking. In which, the controller
is applied to an existing experimental hydraulic system
providing force and position tracking without the complexity
of variable structure or adaptive methods.
Then, Prut et al.[18] excluded the need for position
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knowledge for applying the force control law by using
force, force rate and pressure for force tracking. Finally,
K.Baghestan et al. in [19] proposed a linearized hydraulic
system around an operating point, while the polytopic
uncertainties that emerged were faced by a robust H∞
controller. In general, all of these above advanced methods
improved the quality of force controller in this kind of
system. However, the final result was not always the best.
This paper deals with the control of the hydraulic actuators
of the humanoid hydraulic robot HYDROïD [20]. HYDROïD
is humanoid robot having 52 degrees of freedom. It is weighs
about 125 Kg and is 1.8 m height. It is the first european
robot to have the hydraulic integration technology, in which
the hydraulic oil is transmitted inside the robot parts by
drilling into the mechanical parts. Its main objective is to
navigate in rough terrains, assist the elders and interact
socially with humans. Therefore, the development of a safe
interaction capability for its joints is a necessity.
Under the mantle of HYDROïD ’s project, A prototype
of a 7 degree of freedom robotic arm is being developed, in
which each joint is equipped with one servo valve actuator,
sharing the same hydraulic source. The pressure and rotation
displacement sensors are attached suitably at each joint, in
order to send the necessary feedback information to the
controller. While, the geometrical and kinematics models are
solved, an inverse dynamic model is needed to estimate the
force required for each actuator. Therefore, a force controller
is needed on the hydraulic actuators fixed at the joints to
ensure the right positioning of hydraulic actuator with the
right torque.
But implementing the controller algorithms on the arm
prototype directly may have some problems. As the highly
non-linear system and the powerful capacity of the hydraulic
actuator makes it very dangerous to apply directly the
experimental controller to the prototype. Moreover, before
applying the controller algorithms on the arm prototype
directly, all the tasks should be built and simulated in the
simulation software to ensure precision. Therefore, a linear
actuator test bench was developed for one degree of freedom
of motion and it is used for elementary implementation
subject. Where, the proposed force algorithm to be tested
and verified with the a virtual model built in EASY5 and
ADAMS software.
implementation is presented in section VI, showing the
system components and the validation of the virtual model
and the controller. Finally, section VII is reserved for the
conclusion and the future work.
II. M ATHEMATICAL MODEL OF THE ELECTRO - HYDRAULIC
SYSTEM
Due to the fact of applying force/torque control on a
hydraulic actuated system, a model based control is required
to achieve high dynamic performance. Therefore, knowing
that each joint of the robot arm is coupled by one servo
valve actuator, the dynamics of this kind of actuator should
first be analyzed. These dynamic equations for the hydraulic
system mainly come from the work of Merritt [21]. The
transfer function between the control current Iin , and the
spool displacement on valve, xv , is given by :
Kv ωn2
xv (s) = Iin (1)
s2 + 2ζωn s + ωn2 xv
The control signal applied to the spool valve is directly
proportional to the spool position, meaning that the dynamics
of the valve motor/flapper are fast enough to be neglected.
However, the effects of servovalve dynamics was included by
other researchers [17] but in this case, it requires an additional
sensor to obtain the spool position and only minimal perfor-
mance improvement is achieved for position tracking. So, the
flow is related to the spool valve displacement, neglecting the
leakage, can be described as :
(
p Ps − P1 , xv ≥ 0
Q1 = k1 xv ∆P1 , ∆P1 =
P1 − Pr , xv < 0
(
p P2 − Pr , xv ≥ 0
Q2 = k2 xv ∆P2 , ∆P2 =
Ps − P2 , xv < 0
Where k1 , k2 are the flow gain coefficients of the valve;
Ps and Pr are the supply pressure of the hydraulic oil and
the tank pressure, respectively.
As can be seen from the equations (2) and (3), the pres-
surized flow provided by the servo valve can be decomposed
in three components: a flow generated by the displacement of
the piston, a flow induced by the compression of the oil in the
actuator chamber, and a flow due to leakage in the actuator.

So, this paper reviews the dynamic behaviors of hydraulic V1 ˙

Q1 = A1 ẋ + P1 + QLI + QLE1 (2)
actuators through its mathematical model in section II. The 4β
geometrical and the kinematics models of the arm mechanism
V2 ˙
are presented in section III. The forces required for each Q2 = A2 ẋ + P2 + QLI + QLE2 (3)
hydraulic actuator are estimated through the inverse dynamic 4β
model of the arm mechanism which is shown in section where V1 = V01 + A1 x and V2 = V02 + A2 x are the total
IV. Also, a force control technique using PID controller is volumes of the chambers; V01 and V02 are the extend and
added to the virtual model of the joint mechanism built in retract chamber volumes when x = 0; β is the effective bulk
ADAMS software, in addition to the mathematical model modulus of the hydraulic oil; QLI is the internal flow leakage
of the hydraulic system which is built in EASY5r . This of the cylinder; QLE1 and QLE2 are the external flow leakage
co-simulation is shown in section V. After that the hardware of the chambers.

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Then, the dynamics of the actuator’s moving part is given

by :

mẍ = P1 A1 − P2 A2 − cẋ − Fs − Ff (4)

where, x is the actuator’s displacement; P1 , P2 are the pres-

sures inside the extend and retract chambers of the cylinder,
respectively;A1 ,A2 are the piston areas facing the extend and
retract chambers, respectively;Fs is the spring force; Ff is
the friction force; m is the mass of the moving part; c is the
equivalent viscous damping coefficient.

III. T HE KINEMATICS OF THE ARM MECHANISM Fig. 2. The arm mechanism coordinate frame.

Most of the robots present are designed with rigid links,

as Rigidty generates kinematic accuracy. So, the robotic links In which, Qi+1 is the rotation matrix and di+1 is the
i i
are modeled as a rigid body systems to simplify modeling translation vector.
and to increase the computational efficiency [22]. Therefore,
the arm mechanism can be considered as a system of rigid  
bodies connected together through joint elements as seen in cos qi − cos αi sin qi sin αi sin qi
Fig.1, where, the arm mechanism can be considered a serial Qi+1 = Qi =  sin qi cos αi cos qi − sin αi cos qi 
 
i
manipulator of joints of revolute type. This model of the arm 0 sin αi cos αi
mechanism will be main representation for calculating the (6)
geometric, kinematic and dynamic models in the following  
sections. ai cos qi
di+1 = di =  ai sin qi  (7)
 
i
bi
By applying the values of DH parameters in Fig.2 in Qi
and di as i ∈ 1 : 7 gives :

 
cos qi 0 sin qi
Qi+1 = Qi = ... = Q7 =  sin qi 0 − cos qi  (8)
 
i
0 1 0
 
0
d1 = d2 = d4 = d6 = 0 (9)
 

0
Fig. 1. The arm mechanism rigid model. The Base frame axis are denoted  
Xr , Yr and Zr while the end effector frame axis are denoted Xe , Ye and l1 cos q3
Ze
d3 =  l1 sin q3  (10)
 

0
 
A. Geometrical Model 0
d5 =  0  (11)
 
The kinematics of serial manipulators begins with the study
of the geometric relations between the joint variables, with −l2
one variable per joint. A seven axis manipulator, like the one  
displayed in Fig. 2 has seven joint variables, q1 , q2 ,q3 ..... l3 cos q7
qn . Denavit-Hartenberg notation was calculated and shown in d7 =  l3 sin q7 
 
(12)
Fig. 2.
0
Here, the transformation from frame Ri+1 to frame Ri is
represented by matrix Tii+1 , as: B. Kinematic Model
" # Based on the general case of of a serial revolute axis
i+1 Qi+1
i di+1
i manipulator seen in Fig.3, the angular velocity of the end
Ti = Ti = (5)
0 1 effector can be described as :

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q˙1
 
h i  q˙2 
0
wn+1 = e1 e2 .... en  (13)

 
....
q˙n

While, the linear velocity of the end effector can be de-

scribed as :

q˙1
 
Fig. 3. Serial n-revolute axis manipulator
h i  q˙ 
0 2
Vn+1 = e1 Xr1 e2 Xr2 .... en Xrn   (14)
....
IV. T HE INVERSE DYNAMIC MODEL
q˙n
Robot dynamics is the study of the relationship between
Where, ri = di + di+1 + .... + dn . From both equation 15 the applied forces/torques and the resulting motion of the
and equation 14, the linear and the velocity of the end effector manipulator. Similarly to kinematics, also for the dynamics
are represented as : it is possible to define direct and inverse model. The direct
dynamic model is that once the forces/torques applied to the
joints knowing the joint positions and velocities, the joint
q˙1
 
" # accelerations Rcan be computed as: q̈ = f (q,q̇,τ ) and then q̇ =
e1 e2 .... en  q˙  R
 0 0
  2 q̈ dt , q = q̇ dt.
wn+1 Vn+1 =  
e1 Xr1 e2 Xr2 .... en Xrn ....
q˙n On the other hand, the inverse dynamic model is that once
(15) the joint accelerations, velocities and positions are known,
the corresponding forces/torques can be computed as : τ =
Where, the jacobian matrix can be described as J6xn which f −1 (q,q̇, q̈) = g(q,q̇, q̈).
equals :
The main goal is to derive the dynamic model in short time.
" # The number of link and joints in the kinematic chain, the
e1 e2 .... en topology of the chain (e.g. serial or parallel), the position and
J6Xn = (16)
e1 Xr1 e2 Xr2 .... en Xrn orientation of the coordinate frames, and whether a recursive
procedure is used or not, are factors that influence the
Therefore, the direct kinematic model of the manipulator is computation time. The Newton/Euler formulation is usually
defined as : the preferred choice for manipulators with many degrees
of freedom. The reason is the recursive structure which the
Newton/Euler formulation is based on. If the frames are
q˙1
 
" # attached in a convenient way, the recursions will be greatly
e1 e2 .... en    q˙ 
 2 simplified. In this study, the Newton/Euler formulation is
= J6Xn (17)
used to solve the inverse dynamic model.
 
e1 Xr1 e2 Xr2 .... en Xrn ....
q˙n

In which, the angular velocity of each joint q1 , q2 ,q3 .....

qn are known, in order to calculate the angular and the linear
velocity of the end effector. Also, the inverse kinematic model
can be described as :

q˙1
 
" #
 q˙   e1 e2 .... en
 2 −1

  = J6Xn (18)
.... e1 Xr1 e2 Xr2 .... en Xrn
q˙n
−1
Where, J6Xn is denoted as inverse jacobian matrix. Which
is used to calculate the angular velocity of each joint from the
known velocities of the end effector. Fig. 4. Analytical schematic of serial links dynamics

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The Newton/Euler formalism is based on two fundamental

laws : the force balance 19 and the torque balance equation
20. Fig.4 illustrates the internal and the external generated
forces applied to the i link.

X
f =m×a (19)
link
X
τ = ω × (Iω) + I ω̇ (20) Fig. 5. Block diagram showing the co-simulation of arm mechanism using
link ADAMS and EASY5
So, in order to calculate the kinematic and the dynamic
models for the case of 7 DOF arm mechanism are concluded Parameter Value Unit
as follows :
Ps 50 bar
ωi = ωi−1 + ωii−1 (21) Iin ±15 mA
β 1.5 GP a
Pa 1 bar
A1 0.0025 m2
αi = αi−1 + αii−1 + ωi−1 × ωii−1 (22)
A2 0.00125 m2
Q 6.666 ∗ 10− 5 m3 /s
ζ 0.8 −
me,i = me,i−1 × rei−1,ei + ωi × (ωi × rei−1,ei ) (23) m 20 Kg
ωn 30 rad/s
c 3000 N.s/m
µ 300 N.s/m
mc,i = me,i−1 + αi × rei−1,ci + ωi × (ωi × rei−1,ci ) (24) K 1000 N/m

As the previous equations 21,22,23 and 24, are the TABLE I

equations for the inverse dynamic model to be applied for T HE SIMULATION PARAMETERS FOR THE SYSTEM
the all the links of the mechanism in a recursive manner.
The software Maple [23] was used to calculate the forward
and the backward recursive equations for the mechanism links.
error between the actual force and the desired force, applying
appropriate current to the motor to correct any force errors.
V. M ECHANISM C O - SIMULATION
In order to apply the required control algorithms, a virtual
model of whole system has to be simulated. The whole arm
mechanism is a series of joints connected together to one
input pressure source. But each joint has its electro-hydraulic
servo system. The shoulder joint piston was taken as an
example to represent one degree of freedom for the actuators
on the arm mechanism. Once the the model and the applied
controllers are validated, They can be repeated for all other
joints of the arm mechanism.

The virtual model of the hydraulic cylinder is built in

ADAMS and the mathematical model is built is EASY5r
and a C++ subroutine is created in EASY5r to write the
required controller functions to drive the virtual model in
ADAMS. This way, the physical responses are shown in
ADAMS, while the corresponding graphical response of the
mathematical model is shown in EASY5r (as seen in Fig5).
Moreover, the required sensory feedback is attained by
adding a compression spring to the ADAMS model. Since it
is difficult to model a feedback sensor in such simulation,
the compression of the compliant element, which is here the
added spring, makes the force on the load can be calculated
using Hooke0 s Law. A feedback controller calculates the
Fig. 6. Position and Force control strategies of the robot arm
The nominal simulation values of the electro-hydraulic
servoactuator system are listed in table I. In which the system
is simulated with a time interval of xs against the load
applied of the hydraulic piston.
The hydraulic system was built in EASY5r , in which
the auxiliary components are: The reservoir, relief valve,
pipes, and the junctions are connected with the main sub-
model(Actuator and Controller) which is shown in Fig.7.

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Fig. 7. Modeling of the hydraulic system in EASY5
In this sub-model, as shown in Fig.8, the servo valve
denoted as (VI), the actuator chamber as (AC) and the spring
as (SF) are connected. Where, the specified inputs parameters
of the servo valve and the actuators are given. From this
connection, Some generated forces, that represent the force
balance equation(Eq.25), can be measured from this model.
These forces are :
Fa = Fp − Fs − Fd − Ff (25)
Fig. 8. Configuration of servo valve actuator in EASY5r
So, a new closed loop is built in EASY5r . This closed loop
(seen in Fig.9), Where it can be divided into 6 main groups :
1) Actuator group:
The servo valve controls the pressurized flows into
and out of the actuator, moving the piston, while the
spring represents the external force on the actuator. The
valve receives the pressurized flow from the hydraulic
system (maximum rated pressure Pmax = 210bars)
and the control current signal from Group 5 (maximum
input current Imax = 15m.A), while the actuator and
spring can give the measured feedback values for the
controller in Group 2 and 3.
2) Error group:
It generates the error from the difference of the
reference value and the measured feedback value.
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3) PID controller group:
It receives the error signal from the group 2 and
generates the control signal(voltage)for Group 4.
4) Saturation group:
Its function is to limit the control voltage signal from
the controller in the suitable range. And the saturation
limits are −15v and 15v
5) Voltage to current group:
It transforms the limited control voltage to the control
current, putting into the servo valve in Group 1. And it
1
is shown that transfer function equals 0.01s+1 .
6) ADAMS Simulation Block:
It sends/receives the output signal from the mathematical
model built in Easy5 to the virtual model built in
ADAMS.
Fig. 9. Closed loop Co-simulation of an electro-hydraulic servo actuator with
PID Controller
A. Position control
In spite of the fact that a force control is to be performed
to the system, Acceptable position tracking should be also
achieved. As the robot needs to perform a trajectory in
certain directions while a precise control of the force is
required in the same time. This means that in all other
directions (and orientations), the robot needs to perform a
standard, programmed position trajectory. Therefore, in real
applications, force control is in fact an hybrid force/position
control for which the joint torques are computed using two
references [17]. On top of that, the control scheme needs to
be dynamically changed between two operations. Therefore a
proper position control should be shown for the piston before
applying the algorithms of force control.
A PID control block was added to the proposed model.
Where its gains are added to the simulated system using
Zieglar Nichols tuning method to examine the system
response. Several simulations were performed with various
input trajectories to determine the desired position. As a
result of such simulation, the desired trajectory is tracked
with minimum errors with gains Kp = 0.4, Ki = 0.08 and
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Kd = 1 as shown in Fig.10.

Fig. 11. Simulation of the hydraulic actuator in ADAMS

as shown in Fig.11 and it is simulated, In which the resultant

force is compared to force applied as shown in Fig.12. The
PID gains were found to be Kp = 4.4, Ki = 0.02 and
Kd = 0. Moreover, the damping and the spring force values
are shown in Fig.16. Also, the pressure forces Pe xtension
and Pr etraction are displayed in Fig.14 as blue dotted line
and a black continuous line respectively.
Fig. 10. Position control tracking at xr = 20mm

B. Force control
As previously mentioned in section III-A, robotic
manipulators are modeled as a rigid body systems with
torques as its primary input. So, in order to achieve high
control performance, A controlled torque source is required
for each joint of the rigid body system.

Since the manipulator system at hand is hydraulically

actuated, The hydraulic system control has to be studied. By
its physical nature, a hydraulic actuator is a velocity source,
i.e., a given controlled flow rate into the actuator will results Fig. 12. Closed loop force control output using PID controller
in a certain velocity. Hydraulic actuators are characterized
by its high impedance (mechanically stiff) systems. Due to
the need of having a force controlled joints in the humanoid
robot HYDROïD, force control strategies are needed to be
developed.

The controller to be applied is a conventional PID

controller, where it can be simply added to the mathematical
model built in EASY5r (as will be shown in sectionV).
But in spite of PID controllers are considered the most
widely used controller in industrial applications [24], the
output desired performance in the closed loop systems can
not be guaranteed. As the presence of non linear plant Fig. 13. The output graphs of the Co-simulation of the hydraulic piston.
(a)shows the damping force Fd while (b) shows the spring force Fs .
parameter variations and external disturbances greatly affect
the controller applied. As for hydraulic servo systems, the
main parameters causing non-linearity for the system are : The
hydraulic fluid compressibility, complex flow properties of the VI. H ARDWARE I MPLEMENTATION
servo valve, friction, system mass and variable loading [17]. After achieving acceptable results in simulation, the control
Further research showed that the two common approaches to law was implemented on the existing hydraulic test system
compensate the nonlinear behavior of hydraulic servo systems shown in Fig.15. In which, the whole hydraulic circuit was
which are : adaptive control and variable structure systems. built on a test bench having its main components shown in
But, both are very complex in implementation [18]. table II. The real target for control implementation is to apply
it on the actuators of the arm mechanism. Therefore, the
The output force calculated by the mathematical model in shoulder joint piston was chosen to apply the control law.
EASY5r is applied to the virtual model present in ADAMS The dimensions of the used cylinder 0.185 stroke and a 42

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any discrepancies. The active force sensing and closed loop

control work together to decrease the effects of friction and
inertia, thereby attaining a higher force fidelity and lower
impedance than with current control alone.

Fig. 14. Pressure forces acting on the hydraulic piston

Mechanical Part Specification Manufacturer Model

Hydraulic radial pump up to 220 bars MTS Series 505.6 SilentFlow

Hydraulic servo valve ±15 mA MOOG MOOG30
Pressure sensors up to 1000 bar Keller Series 4 LC
Pressure gauges Scale up to 1000 bars WIKA Model 213.53
Pressure relief valve 200 bar MTS Integrated in 505.6 MTS pump Fig. 16. A screen-shot for the developed electro-hydraulic servo system.
Load Cell up to 50 KN ELAF piezo resistive load cell (1)Servo-valve, (2)Integrated Pressure sensors, (3)Load cell, (4)Hydraulic
Linear Position Sensor 0 to 50 cm range ASM magnetic position sensor cylinder piston and (5)Linear Position Sensor
TABLE II
T HE MAIN COMPONENTS FOR THE HYDRAULIC TEST BENCH The output position and force outputs are shown in Fig.17
and Fig.18 respectively. The PID gains for the position loop
were found to be Kp = 3.46, Ki = 1.11 and Kd = 0.
Meanwhile, the PID gains for the force control loop were
mm outer diameter diameter. The same load that was applied Kp = 22.5, Ki = 0.0196 and Kd = 0.
in EASY5r simulation model is added here. The piston was
connected to 4 kg of weights mounted on a horizontal linear
pulley track system. Fluid pressure was supplied at 50 bar by
a MTS 505 silent flow hydraulic group. A 12 bit A/D and
D/A board connected to personal computer, which is used to
obtain system data from the two pressure sensors and output
the control signal to the servovalve. A sampling rate of 100
KS/s was used. A screen-shot for the hardware is shown in
Fig.16
.

Fig. 17. Position control response at reference value xr = 3 cm

The output response of position control is shown in Fig.17.

The reference position of the piston xr and the output
displacement xp are shown in blue dotted line and black line
respectively. There were no steady state error in the output
but there is a small delay which is negligible in our case.

The output response of force control is shown in Fig.18.

Fig. 15. The hardware schematic used to control the electro-hydraulic servo
actuator system
The position sensor provides the precise position of the
piston, while the load cell measures the force imparted on
the load by the actuator. The feedback controller calculates
the error between the measured force and the desired force
and applies the appropriate current to the motor to correct
The reference position of the piston Fr and the output
displacement Fp are shown in blue dotted line and black
line respectively. There were no steady state error in the
output but there is an overshoot in a very limited time
during flipping the current signal. This overshoot due to
either presence a high coefficient of static friction or some
uncontrollable current overshoot from the servo actuator
board. Such overshoot can be smoothed through the addition
of capacitors in the electronic board controlling the servo
valve. More performance enhancement can be done through

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 International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol:18 No:05
Fig. 18. Force control response at reference value Fr between 100 and 300
N Beira, F. Becchi, L. Righetti, J. Santos-Victor, a. J. Ijspeert,
further research on friction compensation techniques to
eliminate the overshoot error. Moreover, the pressure output
values during extension and retraction are shown in Fig.19.
Fig. 19. Pressure values during extension and retraction of the hydraulic
cylinder.
VII. C ONCLUSION
This paper presents the mathematical model of the electro-
hydraulic actuators used for arm mechanism of the robot
HYDROïD. Based on Newton/Euler formalism, the kinematic
model and inverse dynamic models of the HYDROïD arm
mechanism were calculated. The mathematical model of
the electro-hydraulic servo system was used in EASY5r
to drive the virtual model of shoulder joint cylinder in
ADAMS software. PID controllers for both position and force
were theoretically revised for this mechanism. Furthermore,
experimental validation for these controllers was presented
and the results were shown and discussed.
For future work, the dynamic results reached in this study
can be applied on all the joints of the arm mechanism not
just for one actuator. In which the practical responses can
be compared with the model simulation and find out the
best controller gains for each joint. Further research can
be done to compensate the error present in controller gains
while controlling position and force. As the correct controller
should control both features simultaneously. Moreover, further
research in achieving precise torque control for the hydraulic
servo system acts as the first step in achieving a compliance
control joints for an overall safe interaction hydraulic robot.
Also, the addition of the new integrated electro-hydraulic
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9
actuator will greatly enhance the mobility of the mechanism
and will decrease the nonlinear problems caused by the servo
valves and the hydraulic connections.
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