Wireless Smart Sensor Networks - Research Article

International Journal of Distributed

Sensor Networks
2020, Vol. 16(2)
Robust control of hydraulic tracked Ó The Author(s) 2020
DOI: 10.1177/1550147720907832
vehicle drive system based on journals.sagepub.com/home/dsn

quantitative feedback theory

Chenhui Zhu1,2, Hongmei Zhang1, Wanzhang Wang1,2 , Kang Li1 and

Wanru Liu1

Abstract
To improve the control precision of the drive system of hydraulic tracked vehicles, we established a mathematical model
of the drive system based on the analysis of structural characteristics of the high-clearance hydraulic tracked vehicles
and the dual-pump dual-motor drive system and developed a control strategy based on the quantitative feedback theory.
First, the mutual independence of the two motor channels was achieved through channel decoupling. Then, the loop-
shaping controller and the pre-filter were designed for the two channels. The result of a simulation experiment indicates
that the proposed control method is very effective in suppressing external uncertainties and smoothening the speed-
switching process of the hydraulic motor. Finally, an hydraulic tracked vehicle steering experimental test was carried out.
The results show that under two different steering modes, the maximum standard deviation of the output speeds of the
inner and outer motors of the hydraulic tracked vehicle is only 0.42, which meets the performance requirement on the
hydraulic motor speed. The average steering track radii of the geometric centers of the inner and outer tracks are 1.828
and 0.033 m, respectively, and the relative errors are 1.56% and 3.19%, respectively. This demonstrates that the pro-
posed control method achieves satisfactory results in the robust control of the hydraulic tracked vehicle drive system. It
provides some references for the future control research of the hydraulic servo drive system of the high-clearance
hydraulic tracked vehicles.

Keywords
Hydraulic tracked vehicle, drive system, quantitative feedback theory, uncertain system, interference suppression, robust
control

Date received: 11 November 2019; accepted: 29 January 2020

Handling Editor: Wei-Chiang Hong

Introduction spread nature of pesticide sprays.1 Therefore, develop-

ing highly automated tracked vehicles has become a
Because of the strong-grade ability, large ground-
contact area, mild soil-compaction effect, and high sta-
bility, the use of high-clearance hydraulic tracked vehi- 1
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Henan Agricultural
cles (HTVs) has been widely increasing in small patches University, Zhengzhou, China
of farmland and hilly areas for fertilization, weeding, 2
Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, Zhengzhou,
and pesticide spraying purposes. High labor intensity China
and poor working environment characterize vehicle-
Corresponding author:
based farming activities related to high stalk crops. In Wanzhang Wang, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering,
particular, the health of the operator is put at risk dur- Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450000, Henan, China.
ing the pesticide spraying operation due to the easy-to- Email: [email protected]

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work
without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

trend in the research field of agriculture machinery. design, applying QFT helps maintain the balance
Simple and compact structure and high reliability are between various performance indicators of the system,
the basic requirements of vehicle automation. To which provides an effective method for adjusting the
ensure the controllability and operability of the vehi- controller. Initially, the QFT was used in the design of
cles, a coupling control strategy of force and displace- the flight control system;24 at present, its application
ment,2–4 a H-extension controller based on active front has expanded to many fields such as process control,25
steering system in extreme conditions,5 and optimally vehicle control,26,27 robot control, wind power system
adapt automatic control of intelligent electric vehicles control,28,29 and spacecraft control.30
to driving styles6 had been proposed successively by This study applies the QFT to develop a drive sys-
some experts. With the development of technology and tem control strategy based on the analysis of structural
the ever-higher expectation of the users on the control characteristics of the high-clearance HTVs and the
performance of tracked vehicles, some techniques like dual-pump dual-motor drive system. The proposed
these will be increasingly used in agricultural tracked control strategy aims at solving some steering-related
vehicles. control problems caused by parameter uncertainties,
The electro-hydraulic servo system, combining the time-varying, and nonlinear nature of the hydraulic
advantages of electronic and hydraulic control, is char- drive system. First, a mathematical model of the drive
acterized by high control precision, fast response, high system was established, and the mutual independence
torque output, and flexible signal processing, and the of the two motor channels was achieved through chan-
ease of implementing feedbacks of various parameters, nel decoupling. Then, the loop-shaping controller and
and it is a good choice to realize the automation of the pre-filter were designed for the two channels. The
agricultural tracked vehicle drive system. However, simulation results prove that the proposed control
because of several factors such as the oil compressibil- method is very effective in suppressing external uncer-
ity, nonlinear friction, time variation, possible load dis- tainties and outperforms the conventional PID control
turbances, and unpredictable parameter perturbation, method in smoothening the speed-switching process of
the hydraulic servo system may not fulfill its purpose a hydraulic motor. The results of an HTV steering
of high-precision control.7,8 To explore how to enable experiment show that the proposed control method
robust control with the hydraulic servo system under enables high-precision steering in two steering modes,
the negative influence of model uncertainty, some scho- fulfilling its purpose of providing a robust control for
lars have developed adaptive fuzzy proportional-inte- the drive system of tracked vehicle.
gral-derivative (PID) algorithm for online real-time
adjustment of PID parameters,9 the genetic algorithm
for adaptive adjustment of PID control parameters,10
System modeling and analysis
the anti-interference adaptive control scheme based on Description of the drive system of the tracked vehicle
full-state feedback,11 the sliding mode controller which
Figure 1 shows the drive system of the tracked vehicle.
is immune from the influence of parameter variation
The drive system uses a dual-pump dual-motor throttle
and external disturbances of electro-hydraulic servo
system,12 the model reference adaptive controller
(MRAC) based on mathematical model,13 and the
adaptive neural network controller,14 effectively
improving the steady-state control precision and
dynamic response speed. There also have been devel-
oped some hybrid controllers such as an adaptive inte-
gral back-stepping controller,15 a novel sliding mode
controller,16 and predictive controllers.17 However,
hydraulic servo systems are time-varying systems. As
the conventional control methods are usually suitable
for slow time-varying systems, most of them are too
complicated to be directly applied to hydraulic servo
systems18,19 due to poor transient response perfor-
mance under complicated working conditions.20,21
Therefore, it is especially necessary to develop control
strategies suitable for tracked vehicle hydraulic servo
systems.
Quantitative feedback theory (QFT) is a robust con- Figure 1. Drive system of the tracked vehicle.
troller design method especially suitable for systems 1. Hydraulic motor, 2. Balance valve, 3. Servo valve, 4. Three-way
with uncertainties.22,23 In the practice of control system compensator, 5. Hydraulic oil tank, 6. Double pump, and 7. Track.
Zhu et al. 3

governing circuit; it is a typical electro-hydraulic servo Dynamics model of the tracked vehicle. Moving in a
valve-controlled motor system. The drive system mainly straight line and in-situ steering are the critical points
consists of engine, double pump, hydraulic motor, of the steering motion of the tracked vehicle, so it is
servo valve, balance valve, and three-way compensator. only necessary to establish the steering dynamics model
According to the figure, two hydraulic motors (1) are of the tracked vehicle. The force condition of the
connected with the two corresponding tracks (7). When tracked vehicle is relatively complicated during steering
the tracked vehicle is moving, the movement direction movement.31,32,33 For the convenience of analysis, this
can be controlled by adjusting the speeds of the two study makes the following assumptions
motors, and the speed of each motor can be adjusted by
changing the opening of the corresponding servo valve. 1. The center of mass of the tracked vehicle coin-
The drive system can drive the tracked vehicle to per- cides with the geometric center.
form various actions ranging from moving in a straight 2. The pressure of the track is evenly distributed
line to in-situ steering. across the ground-contact area, and the influ-
ence of the track’s width is ignored.
3. As the speed of the tracked vehicle is low, the air
Mathematical model of the tracked vehicle drive resistance and the centrifugal force are ignored.
system 4. The shearing resistance and bulldozing resis-
To design a robust controller for the tracked vehicle tance of the tracked vehicle are ignored. Thus, a
drive system, it is necessary to establish a mathematical simplified steering movement model of the
model of the drive system at first. The model consists tracked vehicle is established (Table 1).
of a hydraulic servo system mathematical model and a
tracked vehicle dynamics model. According to Figure 2, the steering motion of the
tracked vehicle can be decomposed into a component
parallel to the motion of the vehicle plane center C and
Mathematical model of the hydraulic servo system. The
a component circling the center C, and steering is rea-
tracked vehicle drive system consists of two symmetri-
lized by creating a speed difference between the two
cal four-way valve-controlled motor oil circuits. The
tracks at the two sides. When the inner and outer
linearized flow equations for the servo valve ports are
tracks are rolling in the same direction at the same
QL1 = Kq1 xv1  KC1 PL1 ð1Þ speed, the tracked vehicle is moving in a straight line.
When the inner and outer tracks are rolling in opposite
QL2 = Kq2 xv2  KC2 PL2 ð2Þ directions with the same speed, the tracked vehicle is
doing in-situ steering. Given that the tracked vehicle
The hydraulic motor flow continuous equations are
experiences different force conditions in different
Vt1 0
QL1 = Dm1 u0m1 + Ct1 PL1 + P ð3Þ
4be L1
Table 1. Parameters of the tracked vehicle.
Vt2 0
QL2 = Dm2 u0m2 + Ct2 PL2 + u ð4Þ Symbol Parameter
4be L2
The moment balance equations of hydraulic motors V1 , V2 Inner and outer track speeds (m/s)
Vc Speed of the tracked vehicle center (m/s)
are R Turning radius of the tracked vehicle (m)
v Steering angular speed of the tracked
Dm1 PL1 = J1 u00m1 + T1 ð5Þ vehicle (rad/s)
F1, F2 Traction or braking forces at the ground-
Dm2 PL2 = J2 u00m2 + T2 ð6Þ contact areas of inner and outer tracks
(N)
where QL is the load flow of servo valve, Xv is the spool FR1, FR2 Ground friction resistance received by
displacement of servo valve, Kq is the flow gain of servo inner and outer tracks (N)
valve, Kc is the flow pressure coefficient of servo valve, Mm Steering resistance moment (N m)
PL is the load pressure drop, Dm is the hydraulic B Distance between track centers (m)
L Track ground-contact length (m)
motor’s displacement, um is the rotation angle of C, C1, C2 Tracked vehicle center, steering centers of
hydraulic motor, Ct is the leakage coefficient of hydrau- inner, and outer tracks
lic motor, Vt is the total volume of the two chambers of O Tracked vehicle steering center
the hydraulic motor and the connected pipes, J1 and J2 G Tracked vehicle gravity (N)
are the inertia values of hydraulic motors, respectively, m Steering drag coefficient
f Ground deformation resistance coefficient
be is the oil volume elastic modulus, and T is the exter- J Moment of inertia of the tracked vehicle
nal load moment applied to the hydraulic motor shaft.
4 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

(a) (b)

Figure 2. The two types of steering motion of the tracked vehicle: (a) (R ø B/2) and (b) (0 ł R \ B/2).

driving states, the steering motions can be divided into fG m GL

F2 = + max ð14Þ
two types: R ø B/2 and 0 ł R \ B/2. 2 4B
When the tracked vehicle is turning, the theoretical When the tracked vehicle is turning at a radius of
steering radius can be calculated using equation (7) if R ø B/2, the dynamic balance equation is
no slipping occurs during steering
mv0 = F1 + F2  FR1  FR2 ð15Þ
B v2 + v1
R=  ð7Þ B
2 v2  v1 J v0 = (F2  F1 + FR1  FR2 )  Mm ð16Þ
2
The speeds and steering angular speeds of the two
tracks during steering are When the tracked vehicle is turning at a radius of
0 ł R \ B/2, the inner and outer tracks are rolling in
B opposite directions. As a result, the driving force and
v1 = vc  v  ð8Þ the frictional force of the inner track are also reversed.
2
So, the dynamic balance equation of the tracked vehicle
B
v2 = vc + v  ð9Þ turning at a radius of 0 ł R \ B/2 can be obtained
2
by adding negative signs in front of F1 and FR1
VC
v= ð10Þ
R FR = fG ð17Þ
When R ø B/2, both the inner and outer tracks are mmax
m= ð18Þ
rolling in the same direction (see Figure 2(a)). The brak- 0:925 + 0:15 RB
ing force F1 of the inner track and the traction force F2 mGL
of the outer track can be expressed as Mm = ð19Þ
4
fG mGL
F1 =  ð11Þ Parameter equation of hydraulic motor. When the tracked
2 4B
vehicle is not experiencing slipping during driving, the
fG mGL
F2 = + ð12Þ torque is
2 4B
When 0 ł R \ B/2, both the inner and outer Fi r
Ti = ð20Þ
tracks are rolling in opposite directions, and the rolling ih
direction of the outer track is consistent with that of
where i = 1, 2. T1 and T2 correspond to the torques of
the vehicle (see Figure 2(b)). At this time, the driving
the inner motor and outer motor, respectively (N m), i
forces applied to the inner and outer tracks are of the is the side transmission ratio, h is the efficiency of the
same magnitude and opposite directions. The expres- section from the motor output shaft to the track, and r
sions of the driving forces are is the driving wheel radius (m).
fG mmax GL The relationship between the motor speed and the
F1 =   ð13Þ steering angular speed when the tracked vehicle is turn-
2 4B
ing can be obtained using equations (8) and (9)
Zhu et al. 5

r 0
vc = (u + u0m2 ) ð21Þ external disturbances of the drive system during the
2 m1 driving process are identified. Then, the system para-
r meter uncertainties and system performance indicators
v = (u0m2  u0m1 ) ð22Þ
B are presented on the Nichols chart as robust stability
When the tracked vehicle is turning at a radius of boundary, tracking boundary, and interference sup-
R ø B/2, the driving force can be calculated using pression boundary quantitatively, creating the condi-
equations (15) and (16) tion for a comprehensive analysis of the drive system of
the tracked vehicle.
 0 
mv c J v0 Mm
F1 =   + FR1 ð23Þ
2 B B
 0 
Design of the system decoupling controller
mv c J v0 Mm Given that a strong coupling effect exists in the drive
F2 = + + + FR2 ð24Þ
2 B B system, the design of a QFT controller for the drive
The torque balance equations of hydraulic motors system is difficult because the coupling effect makes it
can be obtained using equations (20)–(24) challenging to determine the boundaries of QFT para-
meter uncertainties. Besides, converting a multiple-
     input multiple-output (MIMO) system into a single-
mr Jr mr Jr 00 mGL r
T1 = + 2 u00 m1 +  2 u m2  + FR1 input single -output (SISO) system increases the diffi-
4 B 4 B 4B ih
ð25Þ culty in the design. Therefore, we decided to decouple
     the drive system before designing a QFT controller for
mr Jr mr Jr 00 mGL r it. For the R ø B/2 steering state of the tracked vehi-
T2 = + 2 u00 m1 +  2 u m2 + + FR2
4 B 4 B 4B ih cle, a decoupling control matrix is designed to isolate
ð26Þ the interference between the two inputs and the two
outputs. The same decoupling method is applied to the
Similarly, when the tracked vehicle is turning at a 0 ł R \ B/2 steering state. After the drive system
radius of 0 ł R \ B/2, the torque equations of the model (equations (25) and (26) undergoes the Laplace
hydraulic motors are transform, the decoupled drive system is obtained (see
Figure 3)).
8 Dm
>
>
>
> Vt1
(KC1 + Ct1 ) + 4B s
>
> Dm
>
> Gp11 =  e =    
>
> mr Jr 2 Vt1 mr Jr 3 mr Jr 2
>
> 1 + + s 1 + + s + (K + C ) 1 + + s
>
> 4 B2 4Be 4 B2
C1 t1
4 B2
>
>
>
> Dm
>
>
< Vt2
(KC2 + Ct2 ) + 4B s Dm ð29Þ
> G p22 =  e =    
>
> mr Jr 2 Vt2 mr Jr 3 mr Jr 2
>
> 1 +  s 1 +  s + (K + C ) 1 +  s
>
> 4 B2 4Be 4 B2
C2 t2
4 B2
>
>
>
>
>
> mr Jr
>
> GP12 =  2
>
> 4 B
>
>
>
: G = mr + Jr
p21
4 B2
    
     um1 GP11 0 QL1
T1 =
Jr mr 00
 u m2 
mr Jr 00
+ 2 u m1 +
mmax GL
+ FR1
r = ð30Þ
B2 4 4 B 4B ih
um2 0 GP22 QL2
ð27Þ The goal is to design a matrix to satisfy the following
     equation
mr Jr mr Jr 00 m GL r
T2 = + 2 u00 m1 +  2 u m2 + max + FR2
4 B 4 B 4B ih     
GP11 GP12 N11 N12 GP11 0
ð28Þ = ð31Þ
GP21 GP22 N21 N22 0 GP22

Design of QFT controller Analysis of QFT controller design

In this study, the controller is designed based on QFT. The implementation of the above decoupling process
First, the uncertain parameter disturbances and allows achieving the mutual independence of the two
6 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Figure 3. Block diagram of drive system decoupling.

Figure 4. Structure of robust control model based on QFT.

motor channels. Now, we need to design a QFT con- equation (32) is 18.2658 rad/s. Considering that the
troller for each motor channel to meet the performance actual load includes the track and its transmission
robustness requirements of the drive system in the pres- mechanism, the bandwidth of the actual power
ence of parameter perturbation. Thus, a control model mechanism should be lower.
that aims at solving the parameter uncertainty and sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
input perturbation uncertainty problems in the tracked 4Be D2m
vehicle drive system model is designed (Figure 4). A vh = ð32Þ
Vt J m
loop-shaping controller and a pre-filter are also
designed for the controller.

Robust stability margin.

Design requirements and robust boundaries
 
Considering the actual operations of the tracked vehi-  Gp (jv)GQFT (jv) 
  ð33Þ
cle, three main system performance boundaries are 1 + G (jv)G (jv) ł Mc
p QFT
needed, that is, robust stability margin, anti-
interference performance, and servo tracking robust This indicator is used to ensure the stability margin
performance. The first thing that needs to be consid- of the system within the entire operating frequency
ered is that the bandwidth of the entire system should band. Considering the general stability margin of the
be determined by the power mechanism, and the band- electro-hydraulic servo control system of the tracked
width of the servo valve is much wider than that of the vehicle, the amplitude margin is determined to be
motor power mechanism. The natural frequency of the around 1.66 dB, and the phase margin is about 50°,
motor of the hydraulic drive system calculated using which can meet the requirements of most working
Zhu et al. 7

conditions. According to the empirical formula, the

value of Mc is about 1.2

1
1+ ø 1:66 dB ð34Þ
MC
 
0:5
1808  2 arccos ø 508 ð35Þ
MC

Anti-interference performance. Anti-interference perfor-

mance indicators include output disturbance robustness
and input disturbance robustness. From an analysis of
the mathematical model of the output disturbance
robustness, the external disturbance is attenuated at the
rate of 40 dB per 10 octaves in the high-frequency
band. So the transfer function is defined to rise at a
rate of 40 dB per 10 octaves. Defining the robust per-
formance boundaries can effectively suppress external
disturbances lower than 3 Hz Figure 5. Template of drive system at selected frequencies on
the Nichols chart.
 
 1 
 
1 + G (jv)G (jv) ł GD (jv)
 p QFT 
 s3 + 64s2 + 748s + 2400
= 0:05 : ð36Þ
s2 + 14:4s + 169
The input disturbance robustness is used to ensure
the robustness of the output under the influence of the
system input interference signal. Here

Min = 0:01 dB ð37Þ

Servo tracking robustness. By considering the actual oper-

ation of the tracked vehicle, the step response is used to
constrain the servo performance
 
 Gp (jv)GQFT (jv) 

dlow (v) ł FQFT (jv) ł dup (v) ð38Þ
1 + Gp (jv)GQFT (jv)
The step response performance indicators of the sys-
Figure 6. Open-loop frequency response and QFT boundaries.
tem within the frequency bandwidth are

Rise time: Tr =1 s input disturbance specification. Gains, zero poles, and

Overshoot: M = 10% complex poles are added to the model to ensure (1) the
Adjustment time: Ts = 2 s low-frequency open-loop Nichols curve of the system is
above and as close as possible to the constraint bound-
ary of the response frequency point and (2) the
Design of controller amplitude–phase curve of the high-frequency section is
Generating a design template. Given the setting of the outside the robust stability boundary. Figure 6 shows
parameter uncertainty, the QFT design template shown the resulting corrected system Nichols chart. The sys-
in Figure 5 can be obtained. The frequencies v = 0.1, 0.5, tem performance is above the boundary at all fre-
1, 5, 10, and 30 rad/s are selected on the Nichols chart. quency points, and the minimum gain is guaranteed.
The resulting controller transfer function is
Synthesis of performance boundaries. The overall design 21:7023
boundary of the QFT controller can be obtained by Gc (s) = s2 0:97s
ð39Þ
115:22
+ 2 3 115:2 +1
synthesizing the robust stability margin specification,
robust output disturbance specification, and robust
8 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Figure 7. Stability margin robustness verification diagram. Figure 9. Input anti-disturbance robustness verification
diagram.

Figure 8. Output anti-disturbance robustness verification

diagram.
Figure 10. Design curve of pre-filter.
Performance check. The results are fed into the transfer
function model for verification to make the results closed-loop frequency response boundary of the sys-
more reliable. The stability margin robustness, output tem is within the tracking performance boundary
anti-disturbance robustness, and input anti-disturbance under the parameter disturbance condition. Thus, the
robustness are verified separately. The results are transfer function of the pre-filter is
shown in Figures 7–9, respectively. The dotted lines in
the graphs represent the performance indicators set in s + 50:07
GF = 0:0683 3 ð40Þ
equations (33)–(37); the corrected system can meet the s + 3:292
set performance requirements very well.

Design of pre-filter. Considering that the system has the Simulation analysis
tracking capability, it is necessary to design a pre- A simulation experiment on the motor channels was
filter for it. From the Bode diagram of Figure 10, the performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed
Zhu et al. 9

Figure 11. R ø B/2 steering states.

control strategy, the results were analyzed, and then Table 2. Key parameters of the tracked vehicle drive system.
the proposed control strategy was compared with the
conventional PID control method. The necessary para- Parameter Numerical value
meters can be calculated using equations (1)–(28).
Tracked vehicle mass (m/kg) 500
Table 2 lists the key parameters of the drive system. Moment of inertia of vehicle (J/kg m2) 550
As shown in Figures 11 and 12, simulation analysis Body width (B/m) 1.2
is performed for R ø B/2 and 0 ł R \ B/2 steering Track length (L/m) 1.22
states of tracked vehicles, and the comparison of Radius of motor drive wheel(r/m) 0.095
Rolling friction coefficient, f 0.05
response state and robust performance is obtained Steering drag coefficient, m 0.6
under the action of different controllers. In the simula- Overall efficiency of hydraulic motor 0.63
tion, an impulse signal with the size of 50 N m and the and transmission mechanism h
duration of 0.1 s was added to one side of motor pas- Side transmission ratio, i 1
sage at 5 s. It can be seen from the figure that com- Servo valve flow gain (Kq/s V) 0.013
Servo valve flow pressure coefficient, 2.06271 3 10–10
pared with PID control, the change value of motor Kc/m3/s Pa
speed is small under the action of QFT controller, only Hydraulic motor leakage coefficient, Ct 2.5 3 10–12
about one-fifth of the change value under PID control, Oil volume elastic modulus, be 1000
and the impulse signal has little impact on the motor Hydraulic motor inertia (Ji/kg/m3) 10
Oil density (r/kg/m3) 850
speed of another passage; the change of motor torque
value is little, which can recover in less time with less
overshoot; the instantaneous turning radius change
value of the tracked vehicle is only about one-fifth of Experiment on steering performance of the tracked
that under PID control. The simulation results show vehicle
that under the same parameter perturbation condition,
QFT controller can suppress the perturbation in a A steering experiment was conducted to test the relia-
short time and show a high robust performance. bility of the robust control of the tracked vehicle drive
10 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Figure 12. 0 ł R \ B/2 steering states.

system when the vehicle is performing R ø B/2 steer-

ing and 0 ł R \ B/2 steering. In order to obtain
good test results, the tests were carried out on a patch
of brick-paved hard ground to increase the friction
between the tracks and the ground, thus avoid slipping.
The main instruments and tools used in the test include
an encoder, tape measure, marking line, Jisibao G970
high-precision GNSS device, Bluetooth module,
embedded board, and portable computer. During the
test, the encoders mounted on the rear wheels collected
the speeds of the two hydraulic motors, and the
embedded board capable of Hampel filtering integrated
the data before transferring the information to the com-
puter. A vehicle-mounted portable computer-controlled
the servo valve-controlled motor system. The tracked
vehicle was positioned in real-time using the Jisibao
G970 high-precision GNSS device to obtain its motion
track during the test. A Bluetooth module transmitted
the position data to the vehicle-mounted computer, and
the computer processed the position data, obtaining the
motion track of the vehicle. Figure 13 shows the test
Figure 13. The actual test site.
site.
Zhu et al. 11

Table 3. Speed parameters of the two hydraulic motors during steering test.

Parameter Differential steering In-situ steering

Inner motor Outer motor Inner motor Outer motor

Theoretical value 50 100 50 –50

Mean 49.83 99.90 49.55 –49.92
Standard deviation 0.40 0.34 0.42 0.34
Coefficient of variation 0.80% 0.33% 0.80% 0.68%

Analysis of motor output speed

The R ø B/2 steering test was carried out under the
following conditions: the inner and outer motors were
turning in the same direction at the speeds of 50 and
100 r/min, respectively, and the rotational speeds were
50 and 100 r/min, respectively. The 0 ł R \ B/2
steering test was conducted under the following condi-
tions: the inner and outer motors were turning in the
opposite directions at the same speed of 50 r/min (the
theoretical turn radius is 0). According to equations
(7)–(10), it would take about 15 s for the tracked vehi-
cle to make a 360° turn in the R ø B/2 steering test,
and 8 s in the 0 ł R \ B/2 steering test. When the
tracked vehicle was turning, the E6B2-CWZ6C encoder
collected the hydraulic motor speed signal that was
then output by the embedded board (the signal process-
ing frequency was set to 2 Hz).
The motor output speed is stable under the two
steering conditions, and the speeds of the inner and
outer motors are close to the theoretical values
(Table 3). In the two steering tests, the average output Figure 14. Installation of mobile station.
speeds of the inner and outer motors are slightly lower
than the set speeds due to the uncertain nature of the
computer. Later, the latitude and longitude values were
road surface resistance, but the discrepancies between
extracted from the track information and converted
the actual and the set values were small (the standard
using the Gaussian projection calculation formula and
deviation was only 0.42) and the output speed was sta-
sorted based on which the turning circle was obtained
ble. This result demonstrates that the controller has a
through the fitting with MATLAB. Figure 14 illus-
good robust performance in the presence of system
trates the installation location of the mobile station,
parameter perturbation and uncertainty.
where O and O1 are the geometric center of the
ground-contact area of the tracked vehicle and the
Analysis of steering track phase center of the mobile station, respectively. The
distances between the phase center and the geometric
In order to ensure that enough information points centers a and b are 0.568 and 0.538 m, respectively,
could be collected during the test, the sampling fre- and the phase center is 1.6 m high from the ground.
quency of the G970 system was set to 5 Hz. Equations (41) and (42) describe the relationship
Furthermore, the static data collection was performed between the turning track radius of the geometric cen-
under the idle condition to verify the positioning accu- ter of the ground-contact area and the turning track
racy. The test results show that the test data points are radius of the mobile station phase center.
all distributed in a circle with a diameter of 2 cm, indi-
cating that the measurement accuracy is high enough qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
to meet the test requirement. The steering position data RR ø B=2 = R2n1  a2  b ð41Þ
were transmitted to the vehicle-mounted portable com- pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
puter via the Bluetooth module and stored in the R0 ł R\B=2 = Rn2  a2 + b2 ð42Þ
12 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Figure 15. Turning tracks of the tracked vehicle: (a) R ø B/2 and (b) 0 ł R \ B/2.

Table 4. Turning parameters of the tracked vehicle.

Steering S/N of Steering track of receiver phase center Steering track radius of geometric frame center
type turning track
Circle center Circle center Radius (m) Value of each Mean Theoretical Relative
abscissa (m) ordinate (m) group (m) value (m) error

R ø B/2 1 –0.003 –0.023 2.436 1.826 1.828 1.8 1.56%

2 –0.015 –0.025 2.439 1.830
0 ł R \ B/2 1 –0.006 –0.002 0.833 0.037 0.033 0 3.19%
2 0.026 0.020 0.824 0.028

where a is the longitudinal distance between the phase 1.56% and 3.19%, respectively. The smallness of the
center of the mobile station and the geometric center of relative error demonstrates that the vehicle turns on the
the ground-contact area of the tracked vehicle brick-paved hard ground with satisfactory performance,
(a = 0.586 m), b is the transverse distance between the meeting the design requirements of the tracked vehicle.
phase center of the mobile station and the geometric
center of the ground-contact area of the tracked vehicle
Conclusion
(b = 0.538 m), RR ø B/2 is the turning track radius of
the geometric center of the ground-contact area when We have developed a QFT-based drive system control-
the tracked vehicle is performing R ø B/2 steering, ler based on an analysis of the structural characteristics
RR ł B/2 is the turning track radius of the geometric cen- of the high-clearance HTVs and the dual-pump dual-
ter of the ground-contact area when the tracked vehicle motor drive system. The proposed drive system con-
is performing 0 ł R \ B/2 steering, Rn1 is the turning troller is easy to implement, can improve the robust
track radius of the mobile station phase center when stability and dynamic tracking performance of the
the tracked vehicle is performing R ø B/2 steering, tracked vehicle drive system, and has good robust per-
and Rn2 is the turning track radius of the mobile station formance in the presence of system parameter pertur-
phase center when the tracked vehicle is performing bation and uncertainty. The simulation results show
0 ł R \ B/2 steering. that the proposed control method barely generates
Figure 15 shows the turning tracks of the tracked oscillation and has a small overshoot when the control
vehicle; the vehicle slips and slides during in-situ steer- signal changes, outperforming the conventional PID
ing process due to the high angular speed. control method. The results of the steering experiment
Table 4 lists the parameters of the turning track of show that the tracked vehicle can turn very well on the
the vehicle. The average turning track radii of the geo- brick-paved hard ground, indicating that the controller
metric centers of the inner and outer tracks are 1.828 achieves robust high stability by effectively suppressing
and 0.033 m, respectively, and the relative errors are the dynamic interference of the road surface. Facts
Zhu et al. 13

have proved that QFT controller is feasible and stable 8. Chalupa P and Novak J. Modeling and model predictive
for the hydraulic servo drive system of tracked vehicles, control of a nonlinear hydraulic system. Comput Math
and it can be used as a reference basis for the research Appl 2013; 66(2): 155–164.
of control algorithms for hydraulic servo drive systems 9. Yao J and Deng W. Active disturbance rejection adap-
of the high-clearance HTVs. tive control of hydraulic servo systems. IEEE T Ind Elec-
tron 2017; 64(10): 8022–8032.
Further work will be carried out in the following
10. Qiao XL, Zhang JL and Yan RZ. Design and simulation
areas: the cross-coupling method is used to synchronize of adaptive fuzzy PID for electro-hydraulic servo system.
the two motor channels of the tracked vehicle, and the Mod Mach Tool Automat Manuf Tech 2018; 534(8):
double closed-loop control method is used to further 136–138, 148.
improve the control accuracy of the tracked vehicle 11. Zhang BL. Application of improved genetic algorithm
during walking. PID controller in electro-hydraulic servo system. Proces
Autom Instrum 2017; 3808: 28–32.
12. Su SJ, You YP and Qi JY. Load rigidity adaptive control
Declaration of conflicting interests of electro-hydraulic servo universal testing machine force
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with control system. Control Theory Appl 2018; 35(4): 11–19.
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this 13. Lu XJ and Huang MH. System-decomposition-based
article. multilevel control for hydraulic press machine. IEEE T
Ind Electron 2012; 59(4): 1980–1987.
14. Tan JP, Huang CZ, Liu B, et al. Control strategy of
Funding
hydraulic operation control system under the transient
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup- load in giant hydraulic press. Chin J Mech Eng 2008;
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this 44(11): 272–276.
article: The study was supported by the Special project for the 15. Pi YJ and Wang XY. Trajectory tracking control of a 6-
construction of Supported by China Agriculture Research DOF hydraulic parallel robot manipulator with uncer-
System (grant no. CARS-03), Special project of modern agri- tain load disturbances. Control Eng Pract 2011; 19(2):
cultural industry technology system in Henan (grant no. 185–193.
S2019-02-G07), and Key Scientific Research Project of Henan 16. Lv C, Hong W and Cao DP. High-precision hydraulic
Province Higher Education (grant no. 20A210029). We wish pressure control based on linear pressure-drop modula-
to acknowledge them for their support. tion in valve critical equilibrium state. IEEE T Ind Elec-
tron 2017; 64(10): 7984–7993.
17. Choux M and Hovland G. Adaptive back stepping con-
ORCID iD
trol of nonlinear hydraulic-mechanical system including
Wanzhang Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3891-0136 valve dynamics. Model Identif Control 2010; 31(1): 35–44.
18. Guan C and Pan SX. Adaptive sliding mode control of
electro-hydraulic system with nonlinear unknown para-
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