Super-twisting based sliding mode control of hydraulic actuator without velocity state

This paper provides a novel surface design and experimental evaluation of a super-twisting algorithm (STA) based control for hydraulic cylinder actuators. The proposed integral sliding surface allows to track a sufficiently smooth reference without using the velocity state which is hardly accessible in the noisy hydraulic systems. A design methodology based on LMI's is given, and the STA gains are designed to be adjusted by only one free parameter. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control method are shown on a standard hydraulic test bench with one linear degree of freedom and passive load, where a typical motion profile is tracked with a bounded average error below 1 % from the total drive effective output.