Since the energy crisis, the further development of a variable speed pump-controlled hydraulic system driven by an electric machine has attracted increasing attention during the past few years. As a response to this, an innovative double pump-controlled asymmetric cylinder system (DPC) and its control method are proposed in this study. The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of two variable speed pump-controlled systems for asymmetric cylinders under a four-quadrant operating condition, in comparison with single pump control (SPC). The four-quadrant operating principles of the two systems are analyzed by simulation. Simulation models for both systems are introduced, and a position control method is proposed, with a tracking differentiator and speed feedforward, plus proportional-integral-derivative (PID) for four-quadrant operation. The DPC model was validated with the measurement of a crane. The simulations using the validated model were performed with a position reference and a varying load (four-quadrant operating arm of an excavator). The results demonstrated that the velocity fluctuation is eliminated by using the DPC instead of the SPC, and the position control performance of the DPC is better compared to the SPC, although the energy efficiency decreases slightly. Hence, the proposed DPC and its position control method are feasible for the four-quadrant operation of asymmetric cylinders.

To provide high output force and to reduce the installation space, the electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) usually adopts asymmetric cylinder. However, comprehensive effects produced by its asymmetric flow, parameter uncertainties and unknown disturbance make it difficult to achieve high-accuracy position control. This paper proposed an integral sliding mode backstepping control (ISMBC) based on extended state observer for the asymmetric EHA. Firstly, the principle of the EHA was analyzed and an EHA model was built. Furthermore, the state space equation of the EHA was established based on flow distribution analysis. Two extended state observers (ESO) were designed to achieve real-time estimation of the unmeasured system states, unmatched and matched disturbances. The backstepping method was used to compensate the matched and unmatched disturbance, and an integrated sliding mode controller was developed to eliminate the static error and to improve the response ability. Theoretical analysis indicates that the controller can guarantee the desired tracking performance for the actuator under time-varying unmatched disturbances, and can make the tracking error asymptotically converge to zero under constant matched disturbances. Finally, simulations were performed with the designed controller, backstepping controller and proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller, respectively. Thereafter, detailed comparisons of the control performances were provided. The results show that the proposed controller can achieve better position tracking and stronger robustness in parameter changing compared with the backstepping controller and PID controller.