Pneumatic Servo-Cylinder Position Control by PID-Self-Tuning Controller

This paper is concerned with the practical application of PID-self-tuning control on position control of a pneumatic servo cylinder. Instead of the complicated system-equation-deriving process, a second-order mathematical model is found by the system identification method, which is used for the controller design. A PID-self-tuning controller, whose control parameters Kp, Ki, Kd are time variant and self-adjusted, is designed and implemented in a microcomputer to control the position of the pneumatic cylinder. The experimental results with the PID-self-tuning controller are compared to those from the conventional off-line PID controller.