Professor Andrew Plummer

Director, Centre for Power Transmission and Motion Control

University of Bath, UK

Expert Introduction

　　Andrew Plummer is Professor of Machine Systems at the University of Bath, UK.  His research interests are in the field of motion and force control, including inverse-model based control of electrohydraulic servosystems, hybrid hydraulic/piezoelectric actuation, wave energy converter power take off optimisation, active vehicle control, powered prosthetics, and active structures.  He received his PhD degree from the University of Bath in 1991, for research in the field of adaptive control of electrohydraulic systems. He worked as a research engineer developing flight simulator motion systems before taking up a lecturing post at the University of Leeds. From 1999 he was global control systems R&D manager for Instron, manufacturers of materials and structural testing systems. Here he developed model-based control methods for high performance electrohydraulic test systems, including crash-testing catapults, Formula One racing car test rigs, earthquake simulation tables, and both very high speed and high frequency materials testing machines.  Professor Plummer was appointed to his present position in 2006. The Centre for Power Transmission and Motion Control, founded in 1968, has an international reputation as a centre of excellence in hydraulics, mechanical power transmission and motion control systems, with applications in the aerospace, automotive, robotics and renewable energy sectors amongst others.  Professor Plummer has chaired the UK Automatic Control Council, the IMechE Mechatronics Informatics and Control Group, and is currently Chair of the Global Fluid Power Society.  He is Associate Editor for IFAC Control Engineering Practice and the International Journal of Fluid Power.

Keynote address

Smart integrated fluid power devices

　　A traditional hydraulic actuation system consists of a collection of separate components – e.g. cylinder, valve, manifold, sensors and electronics – which have to specified and interfaced together by a system integrator.  Not only does the system integrator need to be a highly skilled designer, but assembly is a complex task, and interfaces (hydraulic, mechanical and electrical) are expensive and sometimes unreliable.  In this address, I discuss the prospects for future integrated hydromechatronic devices, in which all the separate elements are supplied into a single ‘plug and play’ unit.  This is enabled using additive manufacture of structural elements, giving a space and weight efficient integrated physical device.  By building a valve (for valve-controlled actuators) or a pump (for a pump-controlled actuators) directly into the cylinder body, also with a known and integrated set of sensors, the control algorithm for the device can also be optimised for the fixed hardware set. Examples will be given which include small but powerful actuators for mobile robots, and integrated actuation in powered prostheses.

Professor Katharina Schmitz

Director of the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems (ifas)

RWTH Aachen University, Germany

　　Expert Introduction

　　Prof. Katharina Schmitz graduated in mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University in 2010 with part of her studies taking place at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (USA) and working in Le Havre (France). After graduation, she worked as a scientific staff member and Deputy Chief Engineer at IFAS, the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Controls of Prof. Murrenhoff. In 2015, Prof. Schmitz graduated as Dr.-Ing. and started working in the industrial sector for a family-owned company, which focuses on special purpose hydraulic solutions and large cylinders. There, she was promoted to Technical Director in 2016. Since March 2018 she is full professor at RWTH Aachen university and Director of ifas, the Institute or Fluid Power Drives and Systems.

　　Keynote address

Global Challenges – how can fluid power contribute?

Climate change – urbanisation – ageing society, these are examples for global challenges that are relevant for humanity. In a more and more globalised world, these challenges need to be discussed together to build a bright future for all of us. Fluid power drives and systems have to contribute to these future tasks. Therefore, research and development has to focus more and more on how to help solve the questions that are relevant to society. In this keynote speech, examples are provided on how fluid power technologies can contribute to selected global challenges.

Professor Wieslaw Fiebig

Head of the Laboratory of Vibroacoustics and Fluid Drives

Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland

Expert Introduction

　　Wieslaw J. Fiebig was born in 1955 in Poland. He has experience’s in the area of machine dynamics, vibroacoustics, noise development in machines, vibration modelling. He was studied at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, where in 1985 he has received  his Ph. D. degree. In 1989 he became a Fellow of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University of Stuttgart/ Germany, Institute of Machine Tools where he was head of the Machine Dynamics Group. In 1998 – 1999 he was worked as Senior Project Engineer in NVH Dept. at Bosch Automation Technology in Racine/ WI, USA. From 2000- 2003 he was R&D specialist at the Bosch Braking Systems in Wroclaw. He has published in that areas 2 books and over 90 papers. He deals with vibration and noise development and reduction in hydraulic machines and is author of many studies on the modeling of dynamic phenomena in gear pumps and vane pumps as well as in fluid power units. He carried out many industrial projects in the field of machine dynamics.

His recent activities include using of mechanical resonance in machine drive systems as well as the energy saving’s in machine drives. Since 2004 he is Professor at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. He is member of International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration IIAV.

Keynote address

The Methodology for Noise Reduction in Fluid Power Systems

　　Annoyance caused by noise emitted by different machines is often determined by fluid power drives. This can be observed not only in stationary applications but also in the field of mobile hydraulics. Noise reduction in fluid power units (FPU) is increasingly important in view of their increasing power and stricter requirements concerning noise emitted by machines. Noise generated by FPU cannot be sufficiently decreased only with primary approaches towards single components and depends on  mounting situation of the pumps, the mechanical structure and the layout of the piping system. The noise behavior of fluid power units is therefore strongly system-dependent.

　　The total sound power level is given by the loudest source or sources of noise. Therefore, detection of the loudest noise sources in a power unit has a key importance. The noise sources location will be performed with Sound Intensity Method and acoustic cameras. The Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) has been used to identification of vibrations of main noise sources. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of the mechanical structures of  FPU have been established. Further identification of dynamical behavior of FPU has been carried out with FEM. Based on FE- models the sensitivity analysis will be carried out to establish what parameters of the model have the biggest influence on natural frequencies, especially these which are responsible for the noise generation in fluid power drive.

　　The system approach is necessary to establish methods for noise reduction in fluid power drives. Avoiding of resonance phenomena for both fluid and structure borne vibrations has a great potential for noise reduction in fluid power drives. Knowledge of dynamic properties of fluid power drives is especially important in the context of variable speed drives in which the frequency of excitations is constantly changing. The methodology described in this paper has been used in many applications and its use lead to significant noise reduction of fluid power units.

Professor Zongxuan Sun

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

Expert Introduction

　　Zongxuan Sun is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. He is currently Director of the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP). He was a Staff Researcher (2006-2007) and a Senior Researcher (2000-2006) at General Motors Research and Development Center in Warren, MI. His research interests include controls and mechatronics with applications to the automotive and commercial vehicle propulsion systems. Dr. Sun has published over one hundred thirty referred technical papers and received twenty one US patents. Dr. Sun is a recipient of the Charles E. Bowers Faculty Teaching Award, George W. Taylor Career Development Award from College of Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, NSF CAREER Award, SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, Best Paper Award from ASME Automotive and Transportation Systems Technical Committee in 2018, Best Paper Award from 2012 International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Technologies and Integration, Inventor Milestone Award, Spark Plug Award, and Charles L. McCuen Special Achievement Award from GM R&D.

Keynote address

Transform Fluid Power Based Powertrain System using Hydraulic Free Piston Engine

　　Off-road vehicles including construction machinery and agriculture equipment use fluid power based powertrain systems, where internal combustion engines (ICE) are used as the prime mover and hydraulic pumps, motors and cylinders are used for driving and working functions. The main drawbacks of this architecture are the relatively low efficiency and pollutants emission. An alternative approach is to produce power using a hydraulic free piston engine (FPE), where the piston motion is unconstrained by eliminating the crankshaft. The FPE architecture can be used to address concerns on both the engine and the fluid power system. FPE enables variable compression ratio control, lower friction and less moving parts in a modular and compact design. This feature matches well with advanced combustions such as Low Temperature Combustion (LTC). Thermal efficiency of more than 50% can be achieved. The output of the FPE is converted into fluid power by integrating a linear hydraulic pump directly with the combustion piston. Given the modular nature of the FPE, different power modules can be used for different functions such as driving or working circuits. The various power modules can operate at different pressures and flow rates, and they can be turned on and off in real time, even better they can be located at various locations of the machine. This modular arrangement will significantly reduce throttling loss, improve part load efficiency, and offer extra degree of freedom for machine design and packaging. 

Professor Jean-Charles Mare

Département de Génie Mécanique, University of Toulouse

Expert Introduction

　　The French National Institute of Applied Sciences ( INSA ) and Airbus are located in Toulouse, a famous French city. Professor Jean-Charles MARE is now an outstanding professor at Toulouse University in France and a winner of the French Medal of Education Knight. He has been a member of the French Airbus expert group for a long time and has been engaged in the research of key technologies of aircraft electromechanical and hydraulic actuation systems and meta - components. He has participated in the design of Airbus's several series of aircraft actuation systems ( A340-600, A380, A350XWB ). He has rich simulation design and experimental hardware facilities for flight control actuators.  Professor MARE's research team and the French national key laboratory " Aircraft Hydraulic and Mechanical Control Laboratory" have long had extensive cooperative research with Airbus and its cooperating units, and have accumulated a large number of research results in key technologies such as the architecture of aircraft flight control actuation system, matching design between economy and maneuverability, energy allocation and power optimization, redundancy allocation and management and control system reconfiguration, actuation form and actuator research, and structural control integration.

Keynote address

Needs-oriented solutions for actuation in aerospace: opportunities and challenges to take the best of hydraulic and electric technologies 

　　Cost reduction, energy saving and environment friendliness have become major constraints that have to be considered in addition to the harsh environment during the design of embedded actuation systems and components. This tendency can be observed in mobile applications, e.g. forest industry or earth moving. In aerospace, flight controls, landing gears and engines applications are much more demanding when safety, availability and service life are also regarded, in particular for new programmes. The rapid progresses made by electric drives have generated a lot of expectations as they can potentially put aside the main drawbacks of the so-called "conventional" hydraulic technology. However, the recent experiences towards more/all electric actuation have pointed out the remaining challenges to be faced in order to use hydraulic-less actuators in front line for safety-critical applications. The proposed keynote intends to address the latest advances in aerospace actuation with a particular focus on technology readiness level and remaining challenges. This will be illustrated at both signalling and powering levels, using experience feedback from recent industrial and research programs. A special attention will be given to the interest of combining the best of hydraulics and electrics by developing needs-oriented processes, methods and tools in Mechatronics and Systems Engineering.

Professor Jouni Mattila

Department of Machine Automation, Tampere University, Finland

Expert Introduction

　　Jouni Mattila is a professor of Machine Automation at the Tampere University (*), Finland. He received the M.Sc. Degree in 1995 and Dr. Tech Degree in 2000, both from the Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Tampere, Finland. He was a Visiting Researcher at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, in years 1998-2000. He has been the principal investigator (PI) in numerous national and European Union funded R&D-projects. His research interest include machine automation, nonlinear model-based control system development for robotic mobile manipulators and off-highway machinery, and energy-efficiency of fluid power and hybrid systems. Prof. Mattila is currently a Technical Editor of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

Keynote address

Towards high performance and energy-efficient mobile manipulation

riginal equipment manufacturers of hydraulic heavy-duty mobile machines (HHMMs) – such as construction, forestry, mining and material handling machines – are part of a huge global industry. Currently, the machines are limited to open-loop controlled machinery with individually controlled actuators, requiring skilled operator to achieve the required production rate. Due to present aspirations to increase productivity, lower operating costs and improve safety, we are heading to a future where these machines are becoming field-robotic systems. However, designing high-precision closed-loop control performance for automated operations with HHMMs is a well-known challenge due to the machines’ complex and nonlinear dynamic behavior. In addition to high-precision control, energy efficiency is another vital characteristic in field-robotic HHMMs as energy source(s) must be carried on board in limited space.  

The keynote focuses on the recent developments on science-based control that aims to improve the energy-efficiency of HHMMs without the loss of high-precision control performance. First, the importance and rationale of theoretically sound (i.e., stability-guaranteed) nonlinear model-based (NMB) control is discussed. Then, a method to deal with the “chaos of complexity” of HHMMs and to prevent the “explosion of complexity” (that occurs e.g. in backstepping-like methods) in the NMB control is introduced. Finally, the presentation will provide i) examples of state-of-the-art NMB control designs that are experimentally verified in real-scale multiple degrees-of-freedom (n-DOF) hydraulic robotic systems, ii) our recent results with n-DOF hydraulic manipulator, having the state-of-the-art motion control accuracy with the actuators’ total energy consumption reduction of 45%.