Modelling and Control of an Electro-Hydrostatic Actuator

The control of a novel aerospace actuator is considered, viz., an electro-hydrostatic actuator. It offers a high degree of maintainability and combat survivability of the aircraft's flight control system because all the actuator's elements are collocated. The quantitative feedback theory robust control method is used to design a controller for this novel actuator. Parameter variation, sensor noise and flight condition variability are explicitly considered in the design process. The resulting design is not only robust with respect to actuator parameter variations and flight condition and insensitive to sensor noise, but, in addition, the controlled actuator's phase lag is significantly reduced, thus improving the performance of the overall flight control system.