Mathematical Modeling and Simulation of an Electro-Hydraulic Control System for Plough Machine Operation

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Egyptian Armed Forces, Egypt.

2 Ph.D., Helwan University, Mataryia, Egypt.

Abstract

A detailed procedure of the mathematical modeling of an electro-hydraulic control system has been designed to control the demining depth of a mine plough machine equipped with plough blade of “V” type. A Linear Variable Differential Transformer (LVDT) is used to account for blade position and an ultrasonic distance sensor is used to provide precise, noncontact, level distance measurements through dusty environment. The proposed and implemented hydraulic and electronic control systems are described, in order to model the global system dynamics. Matlab/Simulink® program, which is a software package, is used for modelling, simulation, and dynamic analysis. Simulink provides a graphical user interface for building models as block diagrams. The proposed control system is implemented to the operating hydraulic system of a scaled model of a plough mechanism. The operating hydraulic actuators used to control the plough
mechanism are controlled through a microcontroller and system relays to maintain plough blade depth constant. Results show that significant match between simulated and real operating surface topology and clearing depth is validated by the proposed control system.

Keywords