A Study of the Pneumatic Counterweight of Machine Tools Conventional and Active Pressure Control Method

The pneumatic counterweight method is a suitable counterweight method used for machine tool owing to its high speed and force capacity, combined with low price and clean operation. However, the preset pressure cannot be hold at higher traveling rate if the conventional pneumatic counterweight is applied. In this study, rather than using the conventional pressure compensation method, the active pressure control method was designed as an alternative to the pneumatic counterweight driven by a linear motor. The fuzzy sliding mode controller was designed and implemented for regulating the pressure using the servo valve. The experimental results demonstrate that the variation of the pressure in the pneumatic cylinder can be hold within the range ±15kPa by using active pressure control method.