Proceedings of the 2017 Bath/ASME Symposium on Fluid Power and Motion Control
FPMC2017
PERFORMANCE STUDY OF A PUMP-CONTROLLED CIRCUIT FOR SINGLE ROD
CYLINDERS VIA THE CONCEPT OF LYAPUNOV EXPONENTS
Yuming Sun
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V6
Yuming.Sun@umanitoba.ca
ABSTRACT
Pump-controlled hydraulic actuation of single rod cylinders,
while efficient, often exhibit undesirable performances during
pump mode of operation switching. Although the oscillatory per-
formances have been found in both simulations and experiments,
a rigorous proof of such undesirable dynamics has rarely been
reported due to lack of proper theoretical tools. More specif-
ically, in many previous works, traditional stability analysis of
the pump-controlled single rod hydraulic actuator systems was
carried out by studying eigenvalues of the linearized models in
each of various regions, separately. This may lead to a conser-
vative conclusion. In this paper, such mode switching instability
is analyzed using the concept of Lyapunov exponents, based on
which, the impact of the cracking pressures of the pilot operated
check valves on system dynamics, is investigated. The numerical
results are in agreement with the experimental findings reported
earlier in the load-velocity plane. The paper thus contributes
to the systematic stability analysis for non-smooth hydraulic ac-
tuator systems, which subsequently can facilitate the controller
design.
∗ Address all correspondence to this author.
1 Copyright
October 16-19, 2017, Sarasota,FL, USA
FPMC2017-4314 Draft
Ahmed Imam
Christine Wu
Nariman Sepehri∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V6
imama@myumanitoba.ca
Christine.Wu@umanitoba.ca
Nariman.Sepehri@umanitoba.ca
INTRODUCTION
Pump-controlled hydraulic actuation is believed to be an
energy-efficient alternative to valve-controlled hydraulic systems
since there are no throttling losses within the main power lines of
the actuators. The pump is also able to regenerate energy from
potential and braking energy from other function units by me-
chanically sharing the pumps’ shafts [1]. Single rod cylinders are
the most common pump-controlled actuators used in the electro-
hydraulic applications [2]; they however require compensation
arrangement for differential flow that is generated due to unequal
areas of the cap side and rod side in the cylinder. Although many
pump-controlled circuits for single-rod cylinders have been de-
veloped [1–6], it has been documented that for this kind of cir-
cuits, the actuator exhibits velocity oscillation under certain cir-
cumstances. Such undesirable performance of pump-controlled
single rod actuation systems has been examined in many previ-
ous works via experiments [1, 2, 6]. In regards to theoretical
studies of this instability, methods were limited to the classical
linear stability analysis [1, 5, 7]. To apply linear stability anal-
ysis, the nonlinear system under study should first be linearized
in a region around an operating point. Then, the eigenvalues of
the linearized system are calculated. For the cases where the re-
gion of interest is not close to the operating point or the nonlinear
model cannot be linearized, such as non-smooth dynamics, linear
stability analysis is not applicable.
c 2017 by ASME
 The concept of Lyapunov exponents (LEs) has been applied
as a powerful tool for stability analysis of deterministic nonlinear
dynamical systems [8–11]. A Lyapunov exponent is a number
that reflects the averaged exponential rate of divergence or con-
vergence of nearby orbits in the state space. Generally the sum of
all the LEs represents the average volume contraction/expansion
rate in a state space, and the signs of LEs indicate the asymp-
totic property of the dynamical system [12]. Any attractor of a
dissipative system will have at least one negative exponent and
the sum of all exponents is negative. Moreover, in a dissipative
autonomous system, an attractor is defined to be chaotic if the
spectrum of LEs contains at least one positive exponent. For
non-chaotic attractors such as periodic or quasi-periodic ones,
there are only zero and negative exponents, while those expo-
nentially stable equilibrium points are characterized by all LEs
being negative. Compared to the classical linear stability analy-
sis, the concept of LEs is advanced as it provides a generalization FIG. 1: CIRCUIT OF A SINGLE ROD HYDRAULIC ACTUA-
of linear stability analysis for perturbations of steady state solu- TOR.
tions to time-dependent solutions, i.e., the involved linearization
is around the points on the trajectory, rather than a certain oper- Q2 , to compensate for the cylinder differential flow. In this case,
ating point. the main pump works in pumping mode. The dynamics of the
In this paper, oscillatory performance of a commonly used actuator system can be described as follows:
pump-controlled single rod actuation system is thoroughly ex-
1


amined using the concept of LEs. The circuit configuration in- 
 v̇a = (pa AA − pb AB ) − fv va − FL
cludes two pilot operated check valves (POCVs) that compen-


 me
Koil

sate for differential flow. Numerical simulations are conducted to ṗa = (QA − AA va ) (1)
calculate the spectra of LEs given different pump inputs, which

 VA
 ṗb = Koil (−QB + AB va )


provide a rigorous proof of the circuit dynamical stability. Para-

VB
metric stability analysis is carried out as well to investigate the
effects of cracking pressures of POCVs used in the circuit on the where the velocity of the actuator va , the pressures in lines A and
overall stability. B, pa and pb , are defined as three state variables of the system.
All physical parameters of the system are listed in Tab. 1. QA

METHODOLOGY
Circuit of A Single Rod Hydraulic Actuator TABLE 1: SYSTEM PARAMETERS.
Figure 1 shows a commonly used pump-controlled circuit
equipped with two POCVs for the motion control of a single rod Symbols Definition Value/Range
hydraulic actuator. Piloted lines to both POCVs are pressurized
me Equivalent moving mass 0 ∼ 6000[kg]
through the cross pressure lines of the circuit. QP is the pump
AA Piston effective area at cap side 31.67 [cm2 ]
flow rate, which is positive when the hydraulic oil flows from
AB Piston effective area at rod side 23.75 [cm2 ]
port b to port a. Defining the pressure difference between two fv Viscous friction coefficient 2000 ∼ 20000
pump ports as P = pa − pb , whenever P and QP possess the same VA Oil volume at cap side of the cylinder 3000 [cm3 ]
sign, the circuit works in pumping mode. Otherwise, it works in VB Oil volume at rod side of the cylinder 2000 [cm3 ]
motoring mode. From the actuator perspective when motion of Koil Oil bulk modulus 1.2×109
the cylinder is against the external force (i.e., va and FL have the K pilot Pilot ratio of POCV 3
same sign), the actuator works in resistive mode. Otherwise it Amx Max flow area in POCV 0.25 [cm2 ]
works in assistive mode. Alk Leakage area 0 ∼ 10−5 [cm2 ]
Consider extending the actuator against the resistive external pch Charge pressure 1 ∼ 2[MPa]
load, as shown in Fig. 1, the pump delivers flow at the rate of pcr POCV cracking pressure 0.1 ∼ 0.3[MPa]
QP in clockwise direction to the cap side of the cylinder through Linearized coefficient for flow
Cn 0.024 ∼ 0.048
transmission line A. As the pressure in line A builds up, it opens through the POCVs
the cross pilot operated check valve, POCVB , which allows flow,

2 Copyright

c 2017 by ASME
and QB are the flow rates to and from the actuator ports based on
pressure values at lines A and B, which can be expressed as:
QA = QP − Q1 = QP −Cn APC1 (pa − pch ) (2a)
QB = QP − Q2 = QP −Cn APC2 (−pb + pch ) (2b)
where pch refers to the charge pressure in the pilot line. APCi
with i = 1, 2 denotes the flow area in the corresponding check
valve. They change according to the following cracking condi-
tions where pcr stands for the cracking pressures of both POCVs:

Amx , if K pilot (pb − pch ) − (pa − pch ) ≥ pcr
APC1 = (3a)
Alk , otherwise
 axis kδ xi (t)k:
Amx , if K pilot (pa − pch ) − (pb − pch ) ≥ pcr
APC2 = (3b)
Alk , otherwise
Substituting the above sets of Eqns. (2) and (3) into (1), one
can find that the system of interest is a typical non-smooth dy-
namical system, which is in agreement with that only one of the
POCVs is expected to be opened in normal operation while the
other is closed, and the discontinuities of the dynamical system
arise from the switching moments between the check valves.
Stability analysis of such a single rod hydraulic actuator sys-
tem has been conducted in previous works[1, 7]. Proofs of sys-
tem dynamic stability were usually presented via linearizing the
system around its equilibriums in each smooth region and then
inspecting the eigenvalues of the separate linear models. The
justification of this method comes from the linearization theo-
rem which states that the behaviour of a dynamical system near a
hyperbolic equilibrium point is qualitatively the same as the be-
haviour of its linearization near this equilibrium point. However,
for the cases that the region of interest is not in the neighborhood
of the equilibrium point, linear stability analysis may lead to a
conservative conclusion. Meanwhile, although the undesirable
performance (i.e., the system settles into a limit cycle of repeated
oscillations) has been found both in simulations and physical ex-
periments, a rigorous proof of such behaviour has never been
reported due to lack of proper theoretical tools.
Lyapunov Exponents
The concept of LEs has been proven to be a constructive and
powerful tool for analyzing stability of deterministic nonlinear
dynamical systems. Consider a smooth dynamical system in an
n-dimensional state space expressed in the following form:
FIG. 2: EVOLUTION OF AN INITIALLY INFINITESIMAL 2-
DIMENSIONAL SPHERE.
is then defined in terms of the length of the ellipsoidal principal
1 kδ xi (t)k
λi = lim ln , i = 1, . . . , n, (5)
t→∞ t kδ xi (t0 )k
where kδ xi (t0 )k and kδ xi (t)k represent the lengths of the ith prin-
cipal axis of the infinitesimal n-dimensional hyper-ellipsoid at
initial and current time instances, t0 and t respectively. This defi-
nition indicates that LEs are related to the expanding or contract-
ing nature of different directions in the state space, and the spec-
trum of LEs is equal in number to the dimensionality of the state
space. In addition, LEs are global properties and independent
of the fiducial trajectory selected to estimate them. This feature
was presented in Oseledec’s work [13], which has been applied
in the limit of infinite time. While in practical application, the
finite-time LEs are frequently used in the following form:
1 kδ xi (t)k
λi = ln , i = 1, . . . , n. (6)
t kδ xi (t0 )k
In the limit as t → ∞, the finite-time LEs converge to the true LEs
[14].
Wolf et al. developed the algorithm for calculating the spec-
trum of LEs from explicit mathematical models of the systems
[15] . In Wolf’s pioneer work a fiducial trajectory (the center
of the sphere) is defined by the action of the nonlinear motion
equations on some initial conditions. The principal axes are de-
termined by the evolution via the linearized equations of an ini-
tially orthonormal vector frame anchored to the fiducial trajec-
tory. This leads to the following set of equations [15]:


ẋx(t) = f x (t) (7a)


Ψt = J x (t) Ψt
Ψ̇ (7b)
where Ψt is the state transition matrix of the
linearized system
δ x (t) = Ψt δ x (t0 ). The Jacobian matrix J x (t) is defined as
ẋx = f (xx,t) (4) 

∂ f (xx) 
where x ∈ Rn is the state vector, x (0) = x 0 , and f (xx,t) is a contin- J x (t) =  (8)
uously differentiable vector function. Monitoring the long-term ∂ x T x =xx(t)
evolution of an infinitesimal n-sphere of initial conditions, the and
 the initial
 conditions for numerical integrations are
sphere becomes an n-ellipsoid due to the local deforming nature x (t0 ) x
= 0 , where I is the identity matrix of proper di-
of the flow. Figure 2 shows the evolution of a 2-dimensional Ψt (t0 ) I
sphere which is initially infinitesimal. The ith dimensional LE mension.

3 Copyright

c 2017 by ASME
 To avoid misalignment of all the vectors δ xi along the and after the first non-differentiable time instant t1 . The system
direction of maximal expansion, they are reorthogonalized at equations of motion along with the variational equations in each
each integration step by involving the Gram-Schmidt Reorthog- region and at the discontinuity instant have the following expres-
onalization (GSR) scheme, which generates an orthonormal set sions:
{u1 , . . . , un } of n vectors with the property that {u1 , . . . , un } 

 ẋx = f 1 x    
spans the same subspace as {δ x1 , . . . , δ xn }. This orientation- x (t0 ) = x 0
t0 < t < t1 : δ ẋx = ∂ f 1 (xx)  ,
δ x  δ x (t0 ) = δ x 0
preserving property of GSR suggests that the initial labeling of 
∂ x T x =xx(t)
the vectors may be done arbitrarily. Once the orthogonal vector
(10)
frame {u1 , . . . , un } is produced by GSR, for a large enough in-

teger l, one can obtain LEs as follows with the time-step size h t = t1 : 0 = h x (t1 ) (11)
properly chosen: + −


x (t1 ) = g x (t1 ) (12)
l ( j) 

1 kui k  ẋx = f 2 x 
x (t1 ) = x (t1+ )
  
λi ≈ ∑ ln , i = 1, 2, . . . , n, (9)
lh j=1
( j−1)
kui k t1 < t < t2 : δ ẋx = ∂ f 2 (xx)  ,
δ x  δ x (t1 ) = δ x (t1+ )
(0)
where j is the number of integration steps and ui
One may notice that during calculation of LEs, the original
state-space equations are required to be linearizable for deriva-
tion of the variational equation. This introduces a major prob-
lem for dynamical systems with discontinuities. To solve this
problem, Müller extended the calculation procedure to systems
with non-differentiable points based on normal linearization of
dynamic equations in regions of smooth motion supplemented
by transition conditions at the instants of discontinuities [16].
Suppose that an autonomous system evolves smoothly before
∂ x T x =xx(t)

= δ xi (t0 ). (13)
where h (·) in (11) is an indicator function which defines the
discontinuity point. The transition condition of the nonlinear
system at t1 is defined by function g (·) in (12) according to the
physical behaviour of the system. The plus and the minus signs
denote the values of the quantity just after and before the discon-
tinuity instant, respectively. Both the indicator function and the
transition function are at least one-time continuously differen-
tiable. The general form of the variational equations of motion
at the kth instant of discontinuity, tk , are derived as ([16, 17]):

H k x (tk− ) δ x (tk− )
 

δ x (tk+ ) = G k x (tk− ) δ x (tk− ) − G k x (tk− ) f k x (tk− ) − f k+1 x (tk+ )





(14)
H k x (tk− ) f k x (tk− )


− ∂ g k (xx)  tion function G k (·) thus can be deduced as an identity matrix of
and H k x(tk− ) =



Here G x
k (tk ) = T
 ∂x 
x =xx(tk− ) size 3.
∂ h k (xx) 
are the jacobians of the transition and indication
∂ x T x =xx(t − )
k
functions at tk . f k (·) and f k+1 (·) are the smooth dynamics of the
system before and after tk respectively.
With Eqns. (10-14) representing the generalized method for
derivation of the variational equations, the LEs of the systems
with discontinuities can be estimated. For the circuit presented
in section 2.1, at the kth instant of discontinuity tk , f k+1 (·) can
be determined by substituting pa (tk ) and pb (tk ) into Eqns. (1-
3); f k (·) can be derived in the same way based on pa (tk−1 ) and
pb (tk−1 ) at the (k − 1)th switching point. The indicator function
h k (·) can be formulated based on the switch statement in (3a)
as K pilot (pb (tk ) − pch ) − (pa (tk ) − pch ) − pcr = 0 (or formulated
based on the switch statement in (3b) as K pilot (pa (tk ) − pch ) −
(pb (tk ) − pch ) − pcr = 0) according to the physical behaviour of
the system. Meanwhile, since the system is continuous, one al-
ways has x (tk+ ) = g (xx(tk− )) = x (tk− ). The jacobian of the transi-
4 Copyright
SIMULATION RESULTS
Assume the input signal to the pump is Ve , which relates the
pump flow rate QP in the way that QP = K pmpVe . To investigate
the dynamics of the system, the numerical simulation has been
conducted with MATLAB in the PC environment. The propor-
tional gain K pmp was set to 10.5 × 10−5 . me weighed 500 kg, fv
was selected to be 10000, Cn was chosen as 0.034. The charge
pressure pch was fixed at 1.655 MPa. The cracking pressures
pcr were set to 0.2 MPa in both check valves, where the leakage
area Alk was idealized to be 0. The external force applied on the
cylinder rod FL was assumed to be a push of 2.5 kN. During sim-
ulation the actuator was set to be still at the initial time instance,
meanwhile both pa and pb were assigned the same value as of
pch . Figure 3 shows the system trajectory when the input to pump
Ve = 3. The cylinder rod reached the steady state within 0.5s and
c 2017 by ASME
then kept extension with a constant velocity at 10 cm/s. A typi-
cal oscillatory performance is displayed in Fig. 4, for which the
corresponding pump input Ve = −3. It can be seen that after the
transient period the rod retracted at the rate repetitively varying
in time between two limits, approximately -2 cm/s and -21 cm/s.
The circuit initially worked in pumping mode as a negative in-
put was applied, while the pressure difference pa − pb between
two pump ports moved in the left (negative) half plane. After the
difference passed 0, it started moving in the right (positive) half
plane, the circuit thus worked in motoring mode. Such scenarios
can be observed constantly during the post-transient period, in-
dicating that the circuit kept switching mode of operation during
actuator retraction.
To investigate the stability of the circuit, the spectra of LEs
were calculated given different pump inputs. Figure 5 shows
the evolution of the largest exponent from about 15s till 5000s
for above two cases considering that LEs involve averaged long-
FIG. 3: ASYMPTOTICALLY STABLE PERFORMANCE OF
THE ACTUATOR SYSTEM WHEN Ve = 3.
FIG. 4: OSCILLATORY PERFORMANCE OF THE ACTUA-
TOR SYSTEM WHEN Ve = −3.
5 Copyright
FIG. 5: EVOLUTION OF THE LARGEST LE WHEN (A) Ve =
3, AND (B) Ve = −3
term behaviour of the system. For the positive pump input, it can
be seen that λ1 converged to a negative constant, approximately
-10, suggesting that the circuit has been successfully driven to
the equilibrium state. While for the negative pump input, λ1 ap-
proximately converged to 0, which consists with the oscillatory
performance as shown in Fig. 4. Additionally, numerical simula-
tions reveal that with the selected parameters, the circuit always
worked in pumping mode at the steady state during extension.
The oscillatory performance occurred when Ve was increased in
the negative direction (retraction) to -1.0009, and correspond-
ingly λ1 was found to be very close to 0 after 5000s. This finding
is in agreement with one of the previous experimentally identi-
fied oscillatory regions in the load-velocity plane [2]. Specifi-
cally Fig. 6(A) shows a typical circuit performance for a load of
2.54 kN. The pump input Ve jumped from 1.2 to -1.9 at around
8.8s. Here details of the test rig are omitted due to space restric-
tions, which have been documented in [2]. The corresponding
simulation results are displayed in Fig. 6(B). Comparing Fig.
6(A) and Fig. 6(B), one can find that the simulation results match
the experimental observations quite well: during extension, the
average actuator velocity was 5.42 cm/s in experiment vs. 4.55
cm/s in simulation; while during retraction, the actuator veloc-
ity was approximately -9±2 cm/s in experiment vs. -8.4±6.7
cm/s in simulation. Differences between experimental and sim-
ulated pump pressures are slightly bigger: the average pa and pb
during extension were 2.33 MPa and 1.38 MPa respectively in
experiment vs. 2.19 MPa and 1.655 MPa in simulation; while
during retraction pa and pb were both approximately 1.72±0.34
MPa in experiment vs. 2.20±0.52 MPa in simulation. Such dif-
ferences could be reduced by replacing the simplified dynamic
model used in this work with a more accurate model. Table 2
lists the numerical values of LEs for cases of Ve equivalent to 3, -
1.0008, -1.0009, and -3. Phase plots for the middle two cases are
displayed in Fig. 7. One can see that when the input was -1.0008,
the circuit asymptotically approached to the equilibrium, i.e., the
c 2017 by ASME
 FIG. 7: TRAJECTORIES IN THE PHASE SPACE WHEN (A)
Ve = −1.0008, AND (B) Ve = −1.0009.

Ve that forces the first occurrence of oscillatory performance in-

creased in the positive direction, which can be clearly seen from
Tab. 3. Comparisons of circuit performances subject to a con-
stant pump input (Ve = −3) have also been made, which are dis-
played in Fig. 8. The zoom-in views at the right side of Fig.
8 shows that the higher the pcr , va , pa and pb will have the
bigger amplitudes. Besides, the oscillation frequency also in-
creased along with increasing pcr , but differences between each
other were very small: the periods corresponding to the five
cases in an ascending order of pcr were 75.2ms, 74.8ms, 74.4ms,
FIG. 6: (A) EXPERIMENTAL PERFORMANCE AND (B) 74.2ms and 73.8ms. Table 4 shows the numerical values of LEs
SIMULATED PERFORMANCE OF CIRCUIT WITH AN EX- with respect to different pcr . The largest exponents for all five
TERNAL LOAD OF 2.54KN. cases tended to be 0, which is a proof of the presence of os-
cillation. Note that LEs indicate the rates of expansion or con-
TABLE 2: SPECTRA OF LYAPUNOV EXPONENTS AFTER traction of the principal axes of the infinitesimal n-dimensional
5000 SECONDS. ball shown in Fig. 2, which have nothing to do with the con-
vergence/divergence rates of the system states. Specifically, for
the five cases displayed in Fig. 8, one cannot decide the cor-
Lyapunov Exponents (LEs) responding pcr with which the circuit trajectory converges to a
Ve
limit cycle fastest just by comparing the numerical values of LEs
λ1 λ2 λ3 listed in Tab. 4. Indeed this point can be perceived from the
3 -10.003 -10.014 -24488.837
-1.0008 -9.967 -10.504 -24488.857
-1.0009 0.009 -146.465 -24519.434 TABLE 3: CRITICAL Ve AND SPECTRA OF LE S AFTER
-3 0.003 -180.894 -26158.712 5000 SECONDS AS pcr VARIES.

Increment % Lyapunov Exponents (LEs)

rod retracted at a constant rate about -3.3 cm/s, corresponding to Vecritical
λ1 = −9.967 as listed in Tab. 2. of pcr λ1 λ2 λ3
To study the effect of the cracking pressure, pcr , on the over-
-50% -1.7251 0.003 -182.200 -26186.340
all stability, a parametric stability analysis was presented in this
section. The cracking pressures of two POCVs were changed -25% -1.3623 0.003 -174.378 -25879.223
from 50% of their predefined value to 150% with an increment 0% -1.0009 0.009 -146.465 -24519.434
percentage step set as 25% simultaneously. Numerical simula- 25% -0.9475 0.004 -149.350 -22366.508
tions show that along with increasing pcr , the critical value of 50% -0.8889 0.009 -148.881 -21914.769

6 Copyright
c 2017 by ASME
 TABLE 4: SPECTRA OF LE S AFTER 5000 SECONDS AS pcr
VARIES.

Increment % Lyapunov Exponents (LEs)

Ve
of pcr λ1 λ2 λ3
-50% 0.008 -184.032 -26298.401
-25% 0.009 -182.466 -26234.517
0% 0.003 -180.894 -26158.712
-3 25% 0.003 -179.415 -26075.585
50% 0.002 -177.959 -25991.560

TABLE 5: CRITICAL PUMP INPUTS FOR VARIOUS

CRACKING PRESSURES.

Vecritical
Increment of pcri
pcrA pcrA & pcrB pcrB
-50% -0.9477 -1.7251 -1.1751
-25% -0.9738 -1.3623 -1.0780
0% -1.0009 -1.0009 -1.0009
25% -1.0288 -0.9475 -0.9197
50% -1.0576 -0.8889 -0.8263

FIG. 8:OSCILLATORY PERFORMANCES OF THE AC- CONCLUSIONS

TUATOR SYSTEM WITH DIFFERENT CRACKING PRES-
SURES.
view that any state points selected from the post-transient sec-
tion of the system trajectory can be taken as the initial conditions
for calculating the exponents due to the invariance property of
LEs to the initial conditions.
Here an interesting finding can be observed from Tab. 5:
when the cracking pressures of two check valves were changed
independently, the critical pump input to bring out the first oc-
currence of oscillatory performance, Vecritical , changed toward two
opposite directions. To be specific, when pcrB was fixed, Vecritical
grew in the negative direction along with increasing pcrA . While
when pcrA was fixed, increasing pcrB caused Vecritical becoming
less negative. Moreover, one may find that pcrB has the domi-
nant impact on the circuit performance compared with pcrA , since
when changing pcrA and pcrB simultaneously, Vecritical were nu-
merically closer to those of the cases that only pcrB was changed
at the same increment percentage.
In this paper, oscillatory performance of a pump-controlled
single rod actuation system was thoroughly studied. First in or-
der to provide a rigorous proof of the circuit dynamical stabil-
ity, numerical values of spectra of LEs with various pump inputs
were calculated. The results validated the previous experimental
findings about the oscillatory regions in the load-velocity plane.
Next, the effects of cracking pressures of two check valves on
system overall stability was investigated via LE-based paramet-
ric stability analysis. It was found that the cracking pressure of
the check valve connected to the rod side has the dominant ef-
fect on the system performance compared with its counterpart.
The work reported here, contributes to systematic stability anal-
ysis for the non-smooth hydraulic actuator systems, which sub-
sequently can facilitate the controller design.
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