Comparative Analysis, Modelling, and Control of an Elastic Linear Actuator for High-Speed Positioning Systems: Toward Stewart Platform Applications | ||||
| Journal of Engineering Science and Military Technologies | ||||
| Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 29 July 2025 | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejmtc.2025.371551.1314 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
Mohamed Raafat Abu Youssef   1; Amr Ahmed Roshdy2
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| 1Engineering Mechanics Department, Military Technical Collage, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
| 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Linear actuators are crucial in robotics and automation, especially in high-speed positioning systems like the parallel manipulator called Stewart platform. Elastic linear actuators (ELA) have revolutionized various applications, replacing conventional linear actuators. This paper presents a mathematical model for an ELA, incorporating elasticity and damping effects. a PID controller based on root locus method and zero-placement model is used for improved control performance. The step response of the ELA under PID controller shows faster settling time compared to the conventional actuator by 36.08%. Additionally, the overshoot is significantly lower in the ELA by 74.99%. However, the rise time increased by 30.86%. Furthermore, to improve control precision and disturbance rejection, a Model Predictive Controller (MPC) is integrated with the ELA. The ELA's performance under MPC demonstrates accurate and consistent tracking for high-speed positioning applications. The ELA under MPC has a strong time-domain performance with a rise time of 5 ms to 32 ms, a settling time of 2 ms to 77 ms, minimal overshoot, and low steady-state error. Also, the ELA response under MPC has root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.9898 and integral of absolute error (IAE) of 1.4718. While, the conventional linear actuator achieves a rise time up to 27 ms and a settling time between 53 ms and 616 ms. It shows overshoot ranging from 4.15% to 9.95% and steady state error between 0.19% and 15.42%. Error metrics include an RMSE of 0.6924 and an IAE of 1.1710. The system behavior was thoroughly examined using MATLAB-Simulink. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Elastic linear actuator (ELA); PID controller; MATLAB-Simulink; Model Predictive Controller (MPC); High-speed positioning | ||||
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