Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963

Available at http://www.Jofcis.com

Backstepping Sliding Mode Control for Electro-hydraulic

Servo System with Input Saturation via an Extended
State Observer

Shengli SHI 1,2 , Jianxiong LI 1 , Yehong LI 1 , Yiming FANG 1,

1 Key Laboratory of Industrial Computer Control Engineering of Hebei Province, Yanshan University,
Qinhuangdao 066004, China
2 College of Science, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China

Abstract

The position tracking control scheme is investigated in this paper for electro-hydraulic servo system
with parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. First, the total uncertainty is estimated via
an extended state observer, and backstepping sliding mode control law based on the extended state
is designed to ensure the system output track the reference signal. Then the control strategy for
electro-hydraulic servo system subjected to input saturation is further considered. The extended state
observer technique is applied to compensate the eects of the compound uncertainty, which contains
not only the parameter uncertainties and external disturbances, but also the unknown input saturation.
With the proposed method, the stability of the resulting closed-loop system is proven and the tracking
errors converge to a small neighborhood of zero. Finally, simulation results are presented to verify the
eectiveness of the proposed tracking control strategies.

Keywords: Electro-hydraulic Servo System; Input Saturation; Extended State Observer; Backstepping;
Sliding Mode Control

1 Introduction
Electro-hydraulic servo systems (EHSSs) are extensively used in many kinds of mechanizations,
due to their high power-to-weight ratio, fast response and good positioning capabilities, etc. For
example, they have been used in aircraft actuators [1], robot manipulators [2], rolling mill [3],
etc. Therefore, the investigation of position and/or force control for EHSS has theory value as
well as practical signicance.
In recent years, many dierent control techniques have been applied to improve the closed-loop
system performance. Backstepping design method has been applied to EHSS in [46] for tracking
control. Sliding mode control (SMC), for its strong robustness against parameter uncertainties
and external disturbances, has been studied for the control of EHSS [7,8]. Fuzzy sliding control [9]

Project supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 61074099, 61273004) and the
Doctor Foundation of Yanshan University (No. B705).

Corresponding author.
Email address: fyming@ysu.edu.cn (Yiming FANG).

15539105 / Copyright 2014 Binary Information Press

DOI: 10.12733/jcis9216
March 1, 2014
1956 S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963

and variable boundary layer [10] were proposed to smooth the chattering phenomenon, which is
inevitable in SMC. For other schemes to control EHSS, one can nd in [3, 1115]. However, it is
noticeable that these control schemes are designed in the case that input saturation is not taken
into consideration.
In practice, the input power provided to an electro-hydraulic actuator is limited, so input
saturation often occurs in EHSS. The presence of such nonlinearity in the control input may
deteriorate the control performances and even destroy the stability of the control systems. On
the other hand, the existence of input saturation will enhance the complexity of controller design
for nonlinear systems. Analysis and design of control systems with input saturation nonlinearity
have been studied in [1618], and the references therein. In [19], an adaptive backstepping fuzzy
controller composites with an additional H-innity control term was proposed for EHSS with
input saturation. In [20], a fuzzy state feedback controller was presented for electro-hydraulic
active suspensions with input constraint. However, the control approach using fuzzy systems
may require heavy computational burden and presents certain diculties in applications.
Following the discussion above, this paper is undertaken to developed a new controller to im-
prove the performance of EHSS in the presence of parameter uncertainties, external disturbances
and input saturation. Noticing the cascade structure of the position control system, the con-
troller is designed in the backstepping framework, where SMC scheme is presented in the nial
step. To simplify the controller design, the lumped uncertainty is estimated by the extended state
observer(ESO) [21, 22]. Simulations are presented to show the validity of the proposed method.
The organization of this paper is as follows. The model of EHSS under consideration is given
in Section 2. A backstepping SMC based on ESO to be robust against parameter uncertainties
and external disturbances is proposed in Section 3. In Section 4, the controller is developed to
achieve accurate tracking in the presence of parameter uncertainties, external disturbances and
input saturation. Simulation results are given in Section 5 to demonstrate the eectiveness of the
proposed control method and this paper ends with the conclusion remarks in Section 6.

2 EHSSs Model and Problem Formulation

The system being investigated in this paper is presented in Fig. 1. In the following, the nonlinear
dynamic model of the EHSS will be given, which is mainly composed of the force balance equation
of cylinder, the continuity equation of cylinder and the ow equation of servo valve.
xp
k
A2 P2
A1 P1 FL
m

Q1 Q2 BP

Ps Pr

Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of electro-hydraulic servo system

The force balance equation can be written as [7, 12]

P1 A1 P2 A2 = M xp + Bp x p + ks xp + FL (1)
S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963 1957

where xp is the displacement of the load, A1 and A2 are the piston areas facing the extend chamber
and the retract chamber, P1 and P2 are the pressures inside the extend and retract chambers of
the cylinder, M is the total mass of the piston and the load, Bp is the viscous damping coecient,
ks is the load spring constant, FL is lumped uncertain including external disturbances and terms
like the unmodeled friction forces.
If leakages are neglected, the cylinder dynamics can be described by [11, 12]
e
P1 = (Q1 A1 x p ) (2)
V1
e
P2 = (Q2 + A2 x p ) (3)
V2
where e is the uid bulk modulus, V1 = V10 + A1 xp and V2 = V20 A2 xp are the total control
volumes of the two sides of the chamber, where V10 and V20 are the initial volumes when xp = 0,
and Q1 and Q2 are the supplied and returned ows.
The follows Q1 and Q2 are related to the spool valve displacement of xv by [12, 15]
{
Ps P1 xv 0
Q1 = kq xv P1 , P1 = (4)
P1 Pr xv < 0
{
P2 Pr xv 0
Q2 = kq xv P2 , P2 = (5)
Ps P2 xv < 0

where Ps is the supply pressure, Pr is the tank pressure, and kq = Cd w 2/, where Cd is the
valve coecient of discharge, w is the servo valve area gradient, is the hydraulic uid density.
The servo value can be regarded as a zero-order system [7, 15] by xv = kv u, where kv > 0 is the
servo amplier gain, and u is the servo valve control input signal.
By dening the state variables as: x = [x1 x2 x3 ]T , x1 = xp , x2 = x p , x3 = xp , and combining
Eq. (1)(5), the entire system can be expressed as follows



x 1 = x2
x 2 = x3 (6)


x = f (x) + bg(x)u + d
3

( ( ))
A21 A22 Bp e kq kv
where f (x) = ks
M
+ e
M V1
+ V2
x2 M 3
x, b= M
, g(x) = A1 P1
V1
+ A2 P2
V2
, d = FML .
Since there are parameter uncertainties in EHSS, such as, e , Ct , M, kq etc. function f (x) and
parameter b are not completely known but can be written as the form of f (x) = f0 (x) + f (x)
and b = b0 + b, where f0 (x) and b0 denote the nominal part of f (x) and b, f (x) and b denote
the uncertain part of f (x) and b.
Then from Eq. (6), we can get



x 1 = x2
x 2 = x3 (7)


x = f (x) + f (x) + (b + b)g(x)u + d
3 0 0
1958 S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963

The object of this paper is to design backstepping SMC law based on ESO such that the
closed-loop system is bounded stable, and the system output y = x1 can accurately track a
desired reference signal yd , where yd is smooth and bounded.

3 Backstepping SMC Design Based on ESO

In this section, we will develop a backstepping SMC scheme based on extended state observer for
EHSS with parameter uncertainties and external disturbances.
3.1 Extended state observer
From Eq. (7), we have

x 3 = f0 (x) + f (x) + (b0 + b)g(x)u + d (8)

Dening D = f (x) + bg(x)u + d, then Eq. (8) can be expressed as

x 3 = f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u + D (9)

where D is denoted as the total uncertainty, which includes the parameter uncertainties and
external disturbances. D is unknown, so it cannot be used to develop position tracking control
for EHSS. To overcome this, we will introduce the ESO to estimate it. An extended state x4 as
the uncertainty D is added, and Eq. (9) can be written as
{
x 3 = f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u + x4
(10)
x 4 = (t)

where the function (t) is the derivative of the total uncertainty D. Then the second-order ESO
for Eq. (10) can be written as
{
Z 1 = Z2 + f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u 1 E1
(11)
Z 2 = 2 f al(E1 , , )

where Z1 , Z2 are the estimated values of x3 and D. E1 = Z1 x3 and E2 = Z2 D are the

estimation errors, 1 , 2 are the observer gains. The function f al() is dened as
{
|E1 | sgn(E1 ), |E1 | >
f al(E1 , , ) = (12)
E1 / 1 , otherwise

where 0 < < 1, > 0. For appropriate values of 1 , 2 , , , the observer states Z1 , Z2 converge
into a residual set of x3 , D, respectively, which means E2 converges into a residual set of zero.
More information about ESO can been seen in [22].
3.2 Backstepping procedure with SMC
For the reference signal yd , dene the error variables as

e1 = y yd = x1 yd , e2 = x2 1 , e3 = x3 2 (13)

where 1 , 2 are the virtual control laws to be designed.

S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963 1959

Step 1: The time derivative of e1 is e 1 = x2 y d = e2 + 1 yd , consider the Lyapunov function

candidate as V1 = 12 e21 . Construct the virtual control law 1 as

1 = k1 e1 + y d (14)

where k1 > 0 is a designed constant. Then the time derivative of V1 is

V 1 = e1 (x2 y d ) = e1 (e2 + 1 y d ) = k1 e21 + e1 e2 (15)

Step 2: The time derivative of e2 is e 2 = e3 + 2 1 , consider the following Lyapunov function

candidate V2 = V1 + 12 e22 . The virtual control input 2 is designed as

2 = k2 e2 e1 + 1 (16)

where k2 > 0 is the design constant. Then the time derivative of V2 is

V 2 = V 1 + e2 e 2 = k1 e21 + e1 e2 + e2 (e3 + 2 1 ) = k1 e21 k2 e22 + e2 e3 (17)

Step 3: At this step, a sliding surface equation is proposed as

S = c1 e1 + c2 e2 + e3 (18)

where c1 , c2 are positive constants such that [c1 , c2 , 1] is Hurwitz vector. Taking the time derivative
of S, we get the sliding mode dynamic equation in the following form

S = c1 e 1 + c2 e 2 + f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u + D 2 (19)

According to the control theory of sliding mode control, the control law is designed as
1
u = (ue + us )
b0 g(x)
ue = c1 e 1 c2 e 2 f0 (x) Z2 + 2
us = k3 S k4 sgn(S) (20)

where k3 > 0, k4 > 0 are the design constants.

Theorem 1 Consider system (7) with extended state observer (11), sliding surface (18), if there
exist positive constants k1 , k2 , k3 , c1 , c2 satisfy Eq. (21) as follows
{
k1 k2 + k1 k3 c22 + k2 k3 c21 > 0
(21)
k1 k2 k3 + k1 k3 c2 (k1 + k3 c21 )/4 > 0

then with the control laws (14), (16) and (20), the close-loop system is uniformly ultimately
bounded and the actual output can follow the desired signal.

Proof Consider the following Lyapunov function candidate:

1
V = V2 + S 2 (22)
2
1960 S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963

Dierentiating V yields
V = k1 e21 k2 e22 + e2 e3 + S(c1 e 1 + c2 e 2 + f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u + D 2 )
Using the control law (20) yields
V = k1 e21 k2 e22 + e2 e3 k3 S 2 k4 |S| + S(D Z2 )
= E T QE k4 |S| + S(D Z2 ) (23)

k1 + k3 c21 c1 c2 k3 c 1 k3

where E = [e1 , e2 , e3 ]T , Q =
c 1 c 2 k 3 k 2 + k 3 c 2
2 c 2 k 3 1 . From Eq. (21), we can get that
2
c 1 k3 c 2 k3 2 1
k3
Q is positive denite matrix. Then from Eq. (23)
V min (Q)|E|2 k4 |S| + |S||E2 |
min (Q)|E|2 (k4 |E2 |) |S| (24)
where min (Q) is the minimum eigenvalue of Q. Since E2 can converge into a residual set of zero
and k4 is positive parameter to be tuned, we can select large enough k4 and appropriate parameters
k1 , k2 , k3 , c1 , c2 such that V < 0, which means that the closed-loop system is uniformly ultimately
bounded and the tracking performance is guaranteed. The proof is completed.

4 Controller Design Based on ESO with Input Saturation

In section 3, backstepping SMC based on ESO has been designed for EHSS. However, input
saturation has not been taken into account. In practical EHSS, the input power provided to
an electro hydraulic actuator is limited, so input saturation often occurs. If input saturation is
ignored in the control design, the closed-loop system performance may be degraded. Therefore, in
this section, the proposed method will be developed for EHSS in the presence of input saturation,
parameter uncertainties and external disturbances.
With input saturation, system (7) can be rewritten as



x 1 = x2
x 2 = x3 (25)


x = f (x) + f (x) + (b + b)g(x)sat(u) + d
3 0 0

where sat(u) denotes the nonlinear saturation characteristic, which is dened as

uM , u uM

sat(u) = u, um < u < u M (26)


u , uu
m m

where uM > 0 and um < 0 are the known parameters of the input saturation. Then from Eq.
(7), we obtain x 3 = f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u + D, where u = sat(u) u and D = D + bg(PL )u. The
following ESO is used to approximate the compound uncertainty D
{
Z 1 = Z2 + f0 (x) + b0 g(x)u 1 E1
(27)
Z 2 = 2 f al(E1 , , )
S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963 1961

where E1 = Z1 x3 , and Z2 is the estimated value of D.

Theorem 2 Consider system (25) with extended state observer (27), sliding surface (18), if there
exist positive constants k1 , k2 , k3 , c1 , c2 satisfy Eq. (21), then the close-loop system is uniformly
ultimately bounded with the control laws (14), (16) and (28).

1
u = (ue + us )
b0 g(x)
ue = c1 e 1 c2 e 2 f0 (x) Z2 + 2 (28)

where us is the same as (20), and Z2 is the estimated value of the compound uncertainty D.

The proof of Theorem 4.1 is similar to the proof of Theorem 3.1, which is omitted here.

5 Simulation Results
In this section, simulation results are presented to illustrate the eectiveness of the proposed
control method for rolling mill EHSS. The nominal parameters of the system used in the simulation
are listed as follows: kv = 1.25 104 m/A, cd = 0.61, M = 1500kg, w = 0.025, Bp = 2.25
106 N s/m, Ps = 2.4 107 P a, Pr = 106 P a, ks = 109 N/m, A1 = 0.1256m2 , A2 = 0.0422m2 , V10 =
3.768103 , V20 = 1.266103 , = 850kg/m3 , e = 7108 P a and FL = (106 +105 sin(0.4t))N .
Consider the parameter uncertainties as f (x) = 0.1f0 (x) sin(2t) and b = 0.1b0 sin(2t).
The desired trajectory is given as yd = x1s (1 exp(t/t1r )) [4], where x1s = 0.5mm stands for
stationary value of the state x1 , and t1r = 0.02 stands for associated desired time constant. The
saturation constraint values are chosen as uM = 5 and um = 5.
To show the validity of the proposed method, we compare it with traditional PID controller
and controller in [19]. The parameters of the proposed controller (28) are designed as k1 =
1500, k2 = 3200, k3 = 72, k4 = 0.01, c1 = 1, c2 = 2, the parameters for the ESO are designed
as 1 = 1000, 2 = 40000, = 0.25, = 0.1. The parameters of PID controller are selected
as KP = 60000, KI = 10, KD = 0.5. The parameters of the controller in [19] are choose as
k1 = 600, k2 = 500, k3 = 40, = 0.1.
4 5
x 10 x 10
6 2

5 0
Tracking error (m)

4 2
Position (m)

3 4

ESO SMC
2 [16] 6 ESO SMC
PID [16]
1 reference signal 8 PID

0 10
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Time (s) Time (s)

Fig. 2: Position tracking results

1962 S. Shi et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 10: 5 (2014) 19551963

Simulation results using the proposed method are shown in Fig. 2 to Fig. 4 and the comparison
results are shown in Fig. 2 to Fig. 3. One can be see from Fig. 2 to Fig. 3 that the proposed
method can achieve a fast and accurate tracking performance. It is clear that the proposed control
approach can eectively compensate the saturation nonlinearity. From Fig. 4, we can see that
the ESO can achieve a good performance on observing the compound uncertainty and the sliding
mode is stable.
6
ESO SMC
[16]
5
PID

4
Control (V)

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Time (s)

Fig. 3: Control input

4
x 10
1 50

0
0
Disturbance estimation

1
50
Sliding surface

3 100

4
150
5
disturbance estimation 200
6 disturbance
7 250
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Time (s) Time (s)

Fig. 4: The ESO approximation performance and the sliding surface

6 Conclusion
In this paper, a position tracking control scheme for EHSS has been proposed. To improve the
closed-loop system performance under parameter uncertainties, external disturbances and input
saturation, backstepping sliding mode controller based on the extended state observer has been
designed to achieve the stability of closed-loop system, where the extended state observer has
been applied for estimating the compound uncertainty. Simulation results have been presented
to illustrate the developed method.

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