International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 05
Sliding Mode Control of a Single Rigid
Hydraulically Actuated Manipulator
Indrawanto, T.X. Bo
 applied to control a single rigid manipulator driven by electro-
Abstract— In this paper, controlling a rigid robot
manipulator driven by hydraulic system is considered. Due to
changing of inertia moment of the manipulator as well as the
effect of fiction of hydraulic system, the dynamics of the robot
arm is highly nonlinear. Therefore sliding mode control method is
applied. Sliding mode control is a robust control method. It
provides a symmetric approach to the problem of maintaining
stability and consistent performance in the face of modeling
imprecision. Numerical simulations and experiment results of the
control system are presented. The results show the extremely
good robustness of the proposed method.
Index Term— Hydraulic actuators, Robot control, Sliding
mode control, Servosystems
I. INTRODUCTION
Hydraulic robots and machinery are widely used in the
construction and mining industries as crane, excavator, robotic
[5], [12], [13], [14]. They have rapid responses and high
power-to-weight ratios suitable for many applications.
Furthermore, the potential complexity of such controllers is
becoming less and less of an implementation issue due to the
inexpensive and powerful processors available today for real-
time.
The control of hydraulic manipulators is more challenging
that of their electrical counterparts because of the highly
nonlinear hydraulic dynamics [8], [9]. Non-linear
characteristics originate from the compressibility of the fluid
and complex characteristic of servo valve. In addition,
significant uncertain nonlinearities such as external
disturbance, leakages and friction are unknown and can be not
modeled accurately. Therefore the classical control methods as
PI, PID. can be not applied effectively to control hydraulic
manipulators as hydraulic actuators cannot accurately apply
forces or torques over a significant dynamic range. It is very
important to find a suitable nonlinear control method to
hydraulic manipulators. In this paper, a sliding mode control is
This work is supported by AUN/SEED-Net (ASEAN University
Network/Southeast Asia Engineering Education Development Network) of
JICA.
Indrawanto is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of
Technology, Bandung, Jl. Ganesa 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia. Email:
indrawanto@tekprod.ms.itb.ac.id, indra_w2003@yahoo.com
T.X. Bo was with Institute Technology of Bandung. He is now with the
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology,
Aichi 441-8580, Japan. Email: debo_mtk_k46@yahoo.com.
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1
hydraulic system.
Sliding mode control (SMC) or also called variable
structure, is a nonlinear control method, which provides a
symmetric approach to the problem of maintaining stability
and consistent performance in the face of modeling
imprecision and disturbances [1],[2],[3],[7]. Many papers used
this method to control and showed good results with the effects
of un-modeled parameters. In [2], sliding mode control is
applied to control a flexible load. To enhance control
performance, sliding mode control combined with fuzzy PI
controller [6]. But most of them used a symmetric cylinder and
so the dynamic of system became simpler as well as
controlling. When an asymmetric cylinder is applied, dynamics
of the system becomes more complex and using sliding mode
control with only a feedback of their position is more difficult.
So a new approach of sliding mode control is used. In this
way, both errors of position and load pressure is feed backed
to design a controller [2], [3]. This method so far just applied
for applications of straight motions, not for manipulators.
In this paper, the method originates from [2], [3], and is
applied to control a single rigid manipulator. Angle of the
manipulator is tracked by following a desired reference angle.
Here, pressure between two chambers of cylinder is combined
to create a load pressure error of load pressure. Errors of load
pressure and angle position are applied to design a controller.
Numerical simulation is presented and gives a good tracking.
This paper is organized as follow: section II introduces
dynamic formulation and problem statement, section III
discusses controller and estimator designs. Section IV shows
the simulation results, section V presents the experiment
results and section VI concludes the paper.
II. FORMULATION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
This paper focuses on the single rigid arm control driven by
hydraulic system. The coordinate systems, joint angles and
physical parameters of the system are defined as in Fig. 1.
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 International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 05 2

 m
H1   M   L2
 3
(8)
 1 
H 2   M  m  gL
 2 
and noting that the joint displacement, θ, and the piston
displacement, x, are related by a geometrical configuration.
Within the vicinity of certain angle ˆ , the following relation
holds

dx   ˆ d (9)
where,


 ˆ 
2l l0 sin ˆ
Fig. 1. Schematic of the single rigid arm.

l 2  l02  2l l0 cos   ˆ 
The kinetic (T) and potential (U) energy of the arm can be
 
Since T f   T1 sgn   T2 , then (8) becomes


determined as [10], [11].

H1  H 2 cos  T1 sgn   T2  F ˆ (10)
1 mL   2 1 
2
m where T1 and T2 are Coulomb and viscous friction coefficients
T   ML2     M   L2 2
2 3  2 3 (1) respectively.
 m The schematic of the hydraulic servo system driving the
U  g  M   L sin  single rigid manipulator is showed in Fig. 2. Here Ps and Pr are
 2
the supply pressure and the tank reference pressure.
Applying the Lagrange‟s method, the equation of motion are
obtained as

d  T  T U (2)
    R
dt     

where Rθ is the generalized force corresponding to the

generalized coordinate θ

R   f  T f  (3)

where T f  is the torque due to friction, is expressed into [3].

 
T f   b1 sgn   b2  (4)
Fig. 2. Schematic of hydraulic servo system
Assuming that the time constant of the servo valve
with b1 and b2 are constant positive coefficients.  f is the motor/flapper is much smaller than those of the mechanical
parts, we can consider the spool displacement xv is
torque of the hydraulic actuator force F on the arm.
proportional with the current input u of the servo valve.
y xv  Ku u
f F (5) (11)
 where, Ku is a proportional gain of the servo-valve.
with x is a new variable and is calculated from Fig.1 The amount of fluid flow to the head-side Q1 and from the
x  l 2  l02  2ll0 cos     x0 (6) rod-side Q2 of the cylinder is a function of both the valve spool
position and cylinder pressures. The relationship can be
where, x0 is length of the cylinder.
expressed in the following form [8]:
Q1  kq g1 P1 , sgn  xv xv
Substituting (1), (3)-(6) into (2), gives the equation of the
single rigid arm. (12)
Q2  kq g 2 P2 , sgn  xv xv
 m 2  m
 M   L    M   gL cos  T f    where kq is the flow gain coefficient of the servo valve, g1 and
 3  2
(7) g2 are functions of xv and P1, P2 that given by (13)
x
P1 A1  P2 A2 

By putting,

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 P  P1 , xv  0 kq x
g1 P1 , sgn xv    s KP  (22)
 P1  Pr , xv  0 2Ps  PL 
(13)
 P  Pr , xv  0 PL  P1  P2 (23)
g 2 P2 , sgn xv    2 Transforming the flowing continuity (16) into p-domain
 Ps  P2 , xv  0
gives
Applying the flowing continuity equations to the two sides Q1  CP1 p  A1 Xp
of the cylinder and neglecting any external leakage [8]: (24)
Q2  CP2 p  A2 Xp
dx V
Q1  A1  1 P1 V1 V2
dt  e In (24), it is assumed that C  
(14) e e
dx V2 
Q2  A2  P2 Combining (20) and (24) yields
dt  e
where βe is the effective bulk modulus. V1 and V2 are the P1 
KU U  A1 p ˆ  
K P  Cp

volume of two chambers of the cylinder respectively, (25)
calculated as  K U  A p ˆ 
P2  U 2
V1  V0  A1 x K P  Cp
(15)
V2  V0  A2 L0  x  Substituting P1 and P2 into (19) and taking Laplace
transform yields
 
A2  A22 2 ˆ 
where V0 and L0 are the dead volume and the stroke of the
KU  A1  A2  ˆ
cylinder, respectively. H p 2
 T2 p   U 1
By solving for P1 and P2 in (14), the dynamics of the K P  Cp K P  Cp
1

cylinder and its valve can be written as (26)

  dx  Thus, the transfer function from the servo-valve input, u, to
P1  e  Q1  A1  the joint angle, , of the manipulator can be written as follows
V1  dt 
(16)   p

KU  A1  A2  ˆ 
  dx
P2  e  A2
V2  dt

 Q2   
U  p  H 1Cp  H1 K P  T2C  p 2  A12  A22 2 ˆ  T2 K P p
3

 (27)
The force F applied by the cylinder to the arm is simply Equation (27) can be written as
F  P1 A1  P2 A2 (17)   p b3

p p  a1 p  a2 
(28)
where P1 and P2 are the head and rod end pressure of the U  p 2

cylinder, A1and A2 are the head and rod areas of the cylinder
where
respectively.
H1 K P  T2C
Substituting F into (10) the dynamic equation of the entire a1 
system is obtained as H1C
 
H1  H 2 cos  T1 sgn   T2  P1 A1  P2 A2   ˆ
a2 

  A12  A22   T2 K P
2 ˆ

(18) H1C
For a small variation about the reference point, dynamic
(18) can be linearized as follow, K  A  A2  ˆ
b3  U 1


H1  T2  P1 A1  P2 A2   ˆ (19) H1C
Transfer function (28) can be expressed in state space form
Linearizing the valve dynamics (12) and rewriting the
as:
results in s-domain gives, [17]
x  Ax  Bu
Q1  KU U  K P P1 (29)
(20) y 
Q2  KU U  K P P2
where
where
  0 1 0  0
Ps  PL x   , A  0
  1 , B   0 

KU  k q K u (21) 0
2   0  a2  a1  b3 
The system dynamics characteristics are inherently highly

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 International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 05 4

nonlinear and may vary due to load variations and friction system by defining the switching function of the form as
torque. Equation (29) is therefore can be rewritten as s  CT e (38)
x  A 0  A x  B 0  B u   where
(30)
y  C  c1 c2 1
T
(39)
with The values of c1 and c2 are determined by using the pole
0 1 0  0 0  assignment method. If the poles of the system dynamics in a
A 0  0 1 , B 0   0 ,    0 
   sliding mode condition are assigned to real s01 and s02 on the s-
0 (31)
plane, then
0  a2  a1  b3    c1  s01s02
(40)
where A0 and B0 are the nominal system matrices. A and B c2  s01  s02 
represent the parametric variations and/or uncertainties.  is
The control input is composed of a linear and a nonlinear
the vector of disturbances and unmodelled dynamics.
control terms. A linear control is the equivalent control, ueq,
and is calculated by letting ∆A = 0, ∆B = 0, and ν = 0 and by
III. CONTROLLER AND ESTIMATOR DESIGN using the condition s  0 . From (37) and (38),
ueq u d  CT b0  CT A0e
1
(41)
A. CONTROLLER DESIGN
Recall (30). The following assumptions are taken: , or
1. A and B are continuous matrix functions of a vector ueq   K eq e  ud (42)
of uncertain parameters . where
A  Ax,  , t 
Keq  CT b0  CT A0
1
(32) (43)
B  Bx,  , t 
The nonlinear control or discontinuous term unl can simply
2. There exist matrices and two scalars and such that the
be constructed by a signum function with a constant magnitude
unl  k sgn s 
following matching conditions are satisfied:
~ (44)
A  BA and max a~i 0   i , i  1,2
Thus, the control input is then expressed as
~ ~
B  Bb and b    1 (33) u  ueq  unl (45)

  B~ and ~   By choosing the Lyapunov‟s function be

1 2
The control objective is to design a sliding mode controller V s (46)
that provides robust position control performance in the 2
presence of uncertainties (33). The control system block and the derivative of the Lyapunov‟s function is given as
diagram of the system is shown as Fig. 3. V  ss (47)
The discontinuous gain k is determined such that V  0 .
Indeed, by taking (38), (42), (44), and (45) into consideration,
(47) becomes
V  ss

 sCT A 0 e  B 0  K eq e  k sgn s   Ax  B K eq e  u d  k sgn s    
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the control system 
 sCT  B 0 k sgn s   Ax  BK eq e  Bu d  Bk sgn s   v 
~
 ~ ~
 
 sCT B 0 Ax  b K eq e  b u d    1  b k sgn s 
~

The state error of the system is defined as
   
 sCT B 0 Ax  b K eq e  b u d  ~  1  b k sgn s   0
~ ~ ~ ~
e  x  xd (34)
(48)
where, xd is the desired input state vector as follows Since
x d   d d  d  (35) CT B 0  b30  0 (49)
and state equation of the system at steady state meets as then (48 ) becomes
x 1d  A 0 x1d  B 0 u d (36)
~  A~ x  b~K eq
~
   ~
e  b ud s  1  b k s  0 (50)
where, ud is the control law in the steady state.
Thus, k is determined from the condition in (50) as
By combining (30), (34), and (36), we obtain an error state ~ ~ ~
 ~  b u d  A x  b K eq e 
equation as
k  max 
e  A0e  B0 u  ud   Ax  Bu  ~ (51)
(37)  1 b 
 
Therefore, the sliding mode control can be applied with this

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or

  
3
xi   K eq ,1i ei
  u d i
k  i 1
(52)
1  1 
In practice, discontinuity in the switching control (44)
usually results in chattering which may excite undesirable
Fig. 5 Observer block diagram
high-frequency or unmodelled dynamics. Therefore, (44) is
often replaced by a smoothing function such as
s xk   Φxˆ k  1  Γu k  1
u nl  k for > 0
y k    k 
(53)
s  (57)
The value of  is obtained through computer simulations. xˆ k   x k   L c  k   Hy k 
where, xk  is the predicted estimate based on the model
B. OBSERVER DESIGN
In SMC controller above, all states are used to implement prediction from the previous time estimate. x̂k  is the current
traditional SMC controller. They are angular position, velocity estimate based on the current measurement (k). The observer
and acceleration. The position is measured by a sensor, an gain vector Lc is determined by pole assignment.
encoder in this case. However, sensors to detect the velocity
and acceleration are usually not available on electro-hydraulic
servo systems, and therefore these state variables are IV. SIMULATIONS AND RESULTS
approximately obtained by differentiating the position signal
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
or are estimated by an observer.
When designing a controller, plant dynamics is usually robust control method, numerical simulations are performed.
described using a lower order model. This lower order The simulations were conducted with the
approximation can sometimes cause problems resulting from MATLAB/SIMULINK. The sliding mode controller is
unmodelled high-frequency dynamics. When implementing a simulated by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method with the
sliding mode control using actual variables of a plant, time interval, T = 0.004s and the bounds of uncertainties in the
chattering problems will occur. On other hand, when using the condition (33) can be determined as: i = 0.3|io|, i = 1, 2, 3, 
state variables estimated by an observer to calculate the = 0.3|30| and  = 0.5. The desired poles of the system
switching function, chattering can be suppressed because the dynamics in a sliding mode condition are chosen as, s01 = −72
observer is free of unmodelled dynamics. Therefore, in this and s02 = −8. Thus, the values of c1 and c2 are 600 and 80,
investigation, an observer is used to obtain the estimates of the respectively. The desired poles of the observer are chosen at
velocity and acceleration as illustrated in Figure 4. 0.6 and the controller tuning parameters are selected as k = 15
and  = 500.

Fig. 4. Block diagram of the control system with an observer

The observer design is based on the nominal parameters of

the system. Thus, (30) becomes
Fig. 6. Desired rectangular input trajectory
x  A 0 x  B 0 u
(54)
y 
The observer is constructed in discrete form, by discretizing
(54) and using the zero-order hold equivalence method
x e k   Φxk  1  Γuk  1 (55)
where
T

Φ  expA 0 , Γ   expA 0 dB 0 (56)

0
(a)
The current observer is constructed using current output as
shown in Fig. 5 and its equation is given as

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(b)
(b)
Fig. 7. Tracking error for rectangular input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for M = Fig. 10. Tracking error for sinusoidal input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for M =
130 kg 130 kg

(a)
(a)

(b)
Fig. 8. Control input current for rectangular input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for
(b)
M = 130 kg
Fig. 11. Control input for sinusoidal input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for M =
130 kg

Fig. 9. Desired sine input trajectory Fig. 12. Desired triangular input trajectory

(a) (a)

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therefore the experimental results could be compared to the

simulation results.

(b)
Fig, 13. Tracking error for triangular input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for M =
130 kg

Fig. 15. Experiment setup

(a)

(a)

(b)
Fig. 14. Control input current for triangular input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for
M = 130 kg
(b)
Fig. 16. Tracking error for rectangular input for (a) M = 0 kg, (b) M = 130 kg.
The simulation results, Fig. 6 to 14, show that the response
is quick with rise time Ts = 0.5s (M = 0 kg) and Ts = 0.8s (M =
130 kg) and the maximum tracking errors are small, 0.250 (M
= 0 kg) and 0.400 (M = 130 kg) for the sinusoidal input and
less than 0.10 (M = 0 kg) and 0.280 (M =130 kg) for the
triangular input. From these simulation results, although the
variation is considerable, however, the controller still keeps
good tracking and stabilizes with small error and also the
proposed method can practically eliminate the chattering
problem. (a)

V. EXPERIMENT RESULTS
Figure 15 shows the experiment setup that consists of a
single arm manipulator with a payload driven by a hydraulic
cylinder. Hydraulic flow to the cylinder is controlled by a
servovalve. To demonstrate the robustness of the proposed
controller to parameter uncertainties, the payload is varied
from M = 0 kg to M = 130 kg. The proposed controller is
implemented at 5.3 msec. sampling time. The experimental
parameters and controller parameters are mainly the same as (b)
those used in the simulations. Experiments are carried out with Fig. 17. Control input current for rectangular input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b)
the same inputs which were used in the simulation and for M = 130 kg

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(b)
(a) Fig. 20. Tracking error for triangular input for (a) M = 0 kg, (b) M = 130 kg

(b)
(a)
Fig. 18. Tracking error to sinusoidal input for (a) M = 0 kg, (b) M = 130 kg

(b)
(a)
Fig. 21. Control input current for triangular input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for
M = 130 kg

Fig. 16, 18, and 20 show the position tracking errors, and
control laws respectively. For the rectangular input, there is
small overshoot in transient state and no error for steady state.
The controller however took about 0.8s (M = 0 kg) to achieve
100 from initial position of 00 and 1.0s for M = 130kg. It is
slower in comparison with the response in simulation. This is
because of the flow limitation of the hydraulic pump required
to supply the cylinder. For the sinusoidal input, x1d = 10
(b)
sin(0.2t), the maximum tracking error in steady state is less
Fig. 19. Control input for sinusoidal input (a) for M = 0 kg and (b) for M =
130 kg than 0.50 (M = 0 kg) and 0.60 (M = 130 kg). For the triangular
wave inpu the maximum tracking error in steady state is less
than 0.50 (M = 0 kg) and 0.60 (M = 130 kg) . Fig. 17, 19, and
21 show that there are only small chattering appear in the
control law. This demonstrates that the proposed sliding mode
controller could eliminate the chattering beside its robust
control performances.

VI. CONCLUSION
A sliding mode control has been proposed and applied to a
rigid manipulator. The combination of angular position error
(a) and the load pressure error can be asymptotically tracked even

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 International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 05 9

when the system is subject to parameter uncertainties. [13] M. Young, The Technical Writer‟s Handbook. Mill Valley, CA:
University Science, 1989.
Numerical simulation results have shown good performances [14] M. R. Sirouspour and S. E. Salcudean, “ Nonlinear Control of Hydraulic
of tracking. Robots,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, Vol.XX,
Experimental has been carried out to investigate the No.Y, April 2001.
effectiveness of the proposed control method. Experimental [15] D. Zhang, Q. He, P Hao, and H.T. Zhang, “ Modeling and Controlling
for Hydraulic Excavator‟s arm,” 22nd International Symposium on
results showed similar performance to these simulation results. Automation and Robotics in Construction ISARC 2005-Septemper 11-
Rapid response and small tracking errors were close to the 14, 2005, Ferrara (Italy).
simulation results. The proposed controller has high robustness
to load variation. There were chatters in control laws in those
cases. However, these chatters were very small and acceptable
in operating condition of the system.
The main contribution of this paper is to find a new solution
to reduce the chattering problem in sliding mode control
scheme to the control of a single-hydraulically actuated
manipulator. Instead of using common boundary layer
approach, an observer to estimate variable states of the
controller: velocity and acceleration is applied to reduce
chattering problem. The experiment results show that the
proposed controller is able achieve good tracking results
without chattering problem.
.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by AUN/SEED-Net (ASEAN
University Network/Southeast Asia Engineering Education
Development Network) of JICA.

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