Excavators Electrohydraulic Systems Steady-State Optimal Flow Metering Computation Using a Multiple-Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) Solver

Abstract This paper introduces a new approach to compare hydraulic distribution architectutes by computing the steady-state optimal flow metering of electrohydraulic power transmission systems for multi-actuated machine applications such as excavators. The method is based on a constrained optimization problem formulation with binary variables used to handle non-linearites through piecewise linearization. The proposed formulation allows for the study of optimal control and energy efficiency performances of a large variety of electrohydraulic systems. As an exemple of the proposed method, an excavator electrohydraulic system is modelled before computing its optimal metering over the actuators speed and load trajectories from a measured Volvo excavator digging duty-cycle. Then simulated results are inspected, notably showing an energy efficiency of 36.1 % in regards with the Volvo excavator load-sensing hydraulic distribution efficiency which is 24.3 %.