Data-driven Adaptive Thresholding Model for Real-time Valve Delay Estimation in Digital Pump/Motors

Valve characteristics are an essential part of digital hydraulics. The on/off solenoid valves utilized on many of these systems can significantly affect the performance. Various factors can affect the speed of the valves causing them to experience various delays, which impact the overall performance of hydraulic systems. This work presents the development of an adaptive statistical based thresholding real-time valve delay model for digital Pump/Motors. The proposed method actively measures the valve delays in real-time and adapts the threshold of the system with the goal of improving the overall efficiency and performance of the system. This work builds on previous work by evaluating an alternative method used to detect valve delays in real-time. The method used here is a shift detection method for the pressure signals that utilizes domain knowledge and the system’s historical statistical behavior. This allows the model to be used over a large range of operating conditions, since the model can learn patterns and adapt to various operating conditions using domain knowledge and statistical behavior. A hydraulic circuit was built to measure the delay time experienced from the time the signal is sent to the valve to the time that the valve opens. Experiments were conducted on a three piston in-line digital pump/motor with 2 valves per cylinder, at low and high pressure ports, for a total of six valves. Two high frequency pressure transducers were used in this circuit to measure and analyze the differential pressure on the low and high pressure side of the on/off valves, as well as three in-cylinder pressure transducers. Data over 60 cycles was acquired to analyze the model against real time valve delays. The results show that the algorithm was successful in adapting the threshold for real time valve delays and accurately measuring the valve delays.