High-Order Sliding-Mode Controllers of an Electropneumatic Actuator: Application to an Aeronautic Benchmark

This paper presents the control of an electropneumatic system used for moving steering mechanism. This aeronautic application needs a high-precision position control and high bandwidth. The structure of the experimental setup and the benchmark on which controllers are evaluated have been designed in order to precisely check the use of such actuator in aeronautics. Two kinds of controllers are designed: a linear one based on gain scheduling feedback, and two high order sliding mode controllers ensuring finite-time convergence, high accuracy and robustness. Experimental results display feasibility and high performance of each controller and a comparison study is done.