Proceedings of the 8th JFPS International

Symposium on Fluid Power, OKINAWA 2011

Oct. 25-28, 2011

1D1-2

PARAMETERS IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF PNEUMATIC

CYLINDERS FRICTION MODEL BASED ON EXPERIMENTS

Hao Liu*, Jianfeng Chen*, Guoliang Tao*

* State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control,

Zhejiang University
38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou ,310027,China
(E-mail: hliu2000@zju.edu.cn)

ABSTRACT

Although LuGre Model is considered as a nice friction model that can describe the friction phenomenon of pneumatic
cylinders comprehensively, its parameters are hard to be defined in the real cases. In this paper, a new experimental
bench, on which the moving of pneumatic cylinder is driven by a servo motor accurately, is developed to study the
friction characteristics of the cylinders. Based on this bench, a method of how to identify parameters of the LuGre
Model is proposed, using a single-rod cylinder as examples. Meanwhile the influences on the parameters that arise from
running conditions such as working pressure and differntial pressure are discussed. As simulation results agree with the
ones obtained from experiments well, the model and the parameters identification method are proved to be effective in
actual processes.

KEY WORDS

Pneumatic cylinder, Friction model, Parameters identification, Pressure, Experimental Analysis

NOMENCLATURE p1 : Pressure of the cylinder chamber that along the

direction of the cylinder driving force (kPa)
A1 : Piston area of the cylinder chamber that along p2 : Pressure of the cylinder chamber that opposite
the direction of the cylinder driving force (m2) the direction of the cylinder driving force (kPa)
A2 : Piston area of the cylinder chamber that ps : Working Pressure of the cylinder chamber(kPa)
opposite the direction of the cylinder driving Δp : Differential pressure between the two
force (m2) chambers of pneumatic cylinder
F : Friction force (N) t : Time (s)
Fc : Coulomb friction force (N) v : Relative velocity between two surface (mm/s)
Fc0 : Coulomb friction force in pressure 0kPa (N) vs : Stribeck velocity (mm/s)
Fd : Driving force on the testing cylinder (N) vs0 : Stribeck velocity in pressure 0kPa (mm/s)
Fs : Maximum stiction friction force (N) vss : Steady-state velocity (mm/s)
Fs0 : Maximum stiction friction force in pressure x : Cylinder displacement
0kPa (N) z : Average deflection of the bristles (mm)
Fss : Steady-state friction force (N) σ0 : Stiffness of the bristles (N/m)
k1~k8: Proportion coefficients σ1 : Damping coefficient of the bristles (N.s/m)
g : Stribeck effect function
m : Total mass of the moving parts σ2 : Viscous friction coefficient (N.s/m)

Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6

276
σ20 : Viscous friction coefficient in pressure
0kPa(N.s/m)
ξ : Relative damping ratio of the seal ring
INTRODUCTION
Recently with the rapid development of
microelectronics technology, the pneumatic position
servo control systems have become more and more
widespread application in many industrial fields. The
characteristics of the pneumatic cylinder, which is the
key actuator of the servo system, have great influence
on the system’s control precision. Among these
characteristics, the friction force of the actuator is the
most complex non-linearity element. So learning more
about the friction force in pneumatic cylinder is an
important step to build up a high precise pneumatic
position control system, or optimize a pneumatic
cylinder.
In recent years, many researchers, such as Dalh [1],
Bliman [2], Haessig [3], Canudas de Wit C [4], had
proposed many models to describe the friction. Among
them, the LuGre friction model built by Canudas de Wit
C has been accepted as an accurate model that can
describe the real friction phenomenon in most of
experiments. It can describe the friction well both in the
steady state and transient state, with a compact
mathematical form. But, before the model can be used
for the control system, there are several parameters in it
to be identified by experiments firstly. The pneumatic
cylinder friction testing method had been studied by
many researchers. Most of them, such as L. E.
Schroederl [5], B. H. Zhang [6], and P. L. Andrighetto
[7], studied the cylinder friction with the test rig in
which the testing cylinder drives a load cylinder directly.
This method is simple and low cost, but it is hard to
obtain a stable speed of the cylinder to test friction
under very low velocity, or obtain a data without the
interference of the pressure under high velocity.
G.Belfore [8] developed a test rig in which the
pneumatic cylinder was dragged by a hydraulic cylinder,
which ensured the pressure in the cylinder and the speed
of the cylinder can be controlled individually. This
method avoided the problems encountered by the
previous mentioned one, but it was much more complex
and high cost.
In this paper, a new pneumatic cylinder friction
experimental apparatus is developed. Here, the moving
of pneumatic cylinder is driven by a servo motor
accurately. Based on this bench, a method of how to
identify parameters of the LuGre Model is proposed.
Furthermore, experiments were performed to determine
the influnces of speed and working pressure on the
parameters, using a rodless cylinder and a single-rod
277
cylinder as examples.
FICTION MODEL
The LuGre friction model built by Canudas de Wit C
has been accepted as an accurate model that can
describe the real friction phenomenon in most of
experiments. In the model, the friction contact surface is
identified as a group of elastic bristles with random
behavior in the micro-scale. Friction is generated by the
deflection of bristles. It can be described as
(1)
(2)
In the Eq. (2), the function g(v) describes the Stribeck
effect [9]. Usually, g(v) is expressed as
 0 g ( v )  FC  ( FS  F c ) e  ( v / v S )2
(3)
In the steady state, the average deflection of the bristles
z approaches the value
(4)
It follows from Eq. (2) to Eq. (4) that for steady-state
motion the relation between velocity and friction force
is given by
Fss (v)  Fc sgn(v)  ( Fs  Fc )e ( v / vs )   2 v
2
(5)
With this description, the LuGre model is characterized
by six parameters Fc, Fs, vs , σ0, σ1, and σ2. Among them,
parameters such as Fc，Fs、vs and σ2 can be identified by
the means of measuring the steady-state friction of the
cylinder when its velocity is held constantly. However,
the identification of the dynamic-state parameters σ0 and
σ1 is much more complicated for the state variable z in
Eq. (1) is immeasurable.
EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS
To obtain accurate data for the parameters identification
of the LuGre model, a new pneumatic cylinder friction
experimental bench is developed. The schematic
diagram of the system is as Figure 1 shows. In the
diagram, 1 is servo motor, 2 is gear, 3 is lead screw, 4 is
grating displacement sensor, 5 is force sensor, 6 is
testing cylinder, 7 and 8 are pressure sensors, 9 and 10
are buffer tanks, 11 and 12 are precise pressure
regulating valves, 13 is AD/DA card.
Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the servo motor drived
friction experimental bench
The motion of the testing cylinder is driven by a servo
motor, separating the influnce of the pressure in the
chambers of the cylinder. The moving range of the servo
motor driving system is 3m, which guarantees the
effective testing displacement and the possibility of high
velocity testing. The speed of the servo motor is
precisely controled and the lead screw can transfer the
driving force to testing cylinder smoothly. The lowest
speed of the system is below 0.5 mm/s and the highest
is 150 mm/s.
The pressure in the two chambers of the testing cylinder
are controled by precise pressure regulatinng valves
individually. And two big volume baffer tanks are
installed near the inlet and outlet of the cylinder to
stable the pressure when the cylinder is in high speed
moving.
The realtime displacement of the cylinder is got by
grating displacement sensor, with measurement
accuracy of ± 5um and range up to 2m. The force
sensor’s range is 100Kg and its non-linear error is less
than 0.05% FS. And the pressure sensor’s range is 10bar,
with the accuracy of 0.05% FS.
All the signals of the sensors are collected by a AD/DA
card and transferred to the control computer. The system
control program in the computer handles the whole
experiment process and reports the results when the
process is over. The friction force is calculated with the
experiment data in the program as follow:
(6)
MODEL PARAMETERS IDENTIFICATION
WITH THE EXPERIMENT DATA
Steady-state Parameters Identification
The steady-state parameters of the LuGre model can be
identified by the means of measuring the relationship
278
between steady-state friction and velocity curves, as we
can see in the following example.
Here, a single rod low-friction cylinder had been tested
with the bench. The pistol diameter of the cylinder is
32mm and the stroke of it is 500mm.
Because the moving speed of the cylinder and the
pressure in the chambers are relatively more stable
when the cylinder is running in the middle section of the
test stroke, which can ensure the accuracy of data
measured by the sensors. The mean value of the data
collected in this section are taked as the experiment data
for the friction force calculating under this specific
working pressure and moving velocity. As several
different moving velocity experiments are carried out
under the same chamber pressure, a steady-state
friction-velocity curve can be obtained. In Figure 2, we
can see the steady-state friction-velocity curve of the
single rod low-friction cylinder with its both chambers
connecting to atmosphere directly.
Figure 2 Experiment data and fittied steady-state
friction-velocity curve of the single rod low-friction
cylinder with zero chamber pressure
Considering the Eq. (5), which is a non-linear function
and is hard to derivate its coefficients with the least
square method, we use the function named Fminsearch
in the MATLAB ○ R program to find the resolvers.
Function Fminsearch works are based on the theory of
simplex method and has the ability to find the minimum
value of a scalar function from a specified initial value.
While used for the parameter estimation, it is described
as:
[x, fval, exitflag, output]
= fminsearch (fun, x0, options, p1, p2, ……) (7)
where x is the parameters to be identified, fval is the
returned value of the object function at the optimum
solution point z, exitflag is the returned ending flag of
the calculation process, output is a returned data
structure of the calculation process, fun is the object
function that represents Eq. (5) here, x0 is the initial
Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6
value of x, options is parameters for optimizing the
calculation process, p1, p2, … are the arguments
matrix and output values matrix of the object function,
representing the velocity matrix and friction force
matrix come from the experiment data.
The initial values demanded by Eq. (7) can be derived
from the experiment data in Figure 2 as follow. The
relation of friction force and velocity is nearly a line
when the velocity is above 30mm/s. The intersecting
point of the line and the y-axis is the initial value of the
coulomb friction force Fc. The slope of the line is the
initial value of the viscous friction coefficient σ2. The
maximum stiction friction force Fs can be valued with
the mean value of the friction force while the speed of
cylinder is below 0.5mm/s. And the initial value of the
stribeck velocity vs can be replaced by the velocity at
the time when the friction force is the minimum one.
Using the above identification method, the steady-state
motion friction force of the single rod low-friction
cylinder can be calculatied by the following equation:
(8)
The simulation results that calculated with Eq. (8) are
showed in Figure 2 as fitted curve. It can be seen that
the error between the experiment data and simulation
results is very small.
Dynamic-state Parameters Identification
There are two dynamic-state parameters in the LuGre
model. One is stiffness of the bristles σ0 and the other is
damping coefficient of the bristles σ1. Because they
have the relation with the average deflection of the
bristles z, while the deflection always appears at the
time the cylinder speed changes, we focus on the
dynamic processes such as start and stop.
Driving force (N)
Figure 3 Driving force-displacement curve of the single
rod low-friction cylinder in the reciprocating motion
279
We let the cylinder do a short-stroke reciprocating
motion with a low speed 0.5mm/s. To pick up the
rapidly changing data in the dynamic process, the
grating was replaced with a high precise and high
frequency laser displacement sensor here. And the
sampling frequency was also increased to 2000Hz.
The friction force and the displacement of the cylinder
in two running cycles are measured as Figure 3 shows.
As we can see in the Figure 3, there is a very short
displacement on which the friction keeps the linear
relationship with the displacement. So it can be
determined that the cylinder does not move, but the
deforming of the seal ring makes the displacement
appear. It is called pre-move period. In this period, the
average deflection of the bristles z can be regarded as
cylinder displacement. Hence
dz dx

dt dt (9)
Taking the mass acceleration into account, Eq. (1) and
Eq. (9) then give
(10)
Eq.(10) indicates that the dynamic-state characters of
the cylinder in the pre-move period are similar to the
second-order damping system in forced vibration
process. So it can be given similarly
 1   2  2 m 0 (11)
Usually, the value of ξ is given greater than 0.2 and less
than 0.7,P. Z. Li[10].
And because the speed and acceleration is very small in
the pre-move period of the experiment, Eq. (10) can be
simplified as
(12)
Therefore, we can get σ0 as 4.48×105N/m with the
experiment data．Then, from the Eq. (11) the value of σ1
can be determined as 6.42×102N/m.
PARAMETERS MODIFICATION OF THE
LUGRE MODEL
With the previous method, the parameters of LuGre
model can be identified succesfully under the working
Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6
condition with zero chamber pressure. But as we know,

Viscous friction coefficient (Ns/m)

chamber pressure will change the stress state of the seal
ring, then the friction force will be different. The
parameters of the LuGre model have to be modificated
to fit the influences of the pressure.

The influence of working pressure on steady-state

parameters
Setting both chambers of the cylinder stable on the the
same pressures with the precise pressure regulators, we
test the single rod low-friction cylinder under different
steady speed and working pressure. The experiment
results are given in Figure 4.

Figure 6 Relation between viscous friction coefficient

and changing working pressures

Stribeck velocity (mm/s)

Figure 4 Experiment data and fittied steady-state

friction-velocity curve of the single rod low-friction
cylinder with changing working pressures
Figure 7 Relation between Stribeck velocity and
Based on the experiment data, the steady-state changing working pressures
parameters of the model under differet working pressure
are calculated and show in Figure 5~8.

Figure 8 Relation between maximum stiction friction

Figure 5 Relation between Coulomb friction force and
changing working pressures
force and changing working pressures
Figure 5, Figure 6 and Figure 8 indicate individually
that Coulomb friction force, viscous friction coefficient
and maximum stiction friction force are all increasing

Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6

280
with the raising working pressure nearly linear. But Figure 10 Relation between Coulomb friction force and
Figure 7 indicates that Stribeck velocity is decreasing changing differential pressures
with the raising working pressure. Those results can be
explained with the analysis on the physical
characteristics of cylinder friction process. The seal
rings are pushed more firmly against the cylinder wall
and the piston rod while working pressure increasing,
which causes the positive pressure of the seal ring
increasing near proportionally and the boundary
lubrication condition become worse for the oil film is
forced out.
The influence of differential pressure on steady-state
parameters
With the same single rod low-friction cylinder, we test
the relationship between the friction force and the
variable differential pressure under different steady
speeds. The pressure in the rodless chamber of the
cylinder is fixed to 300KPa while the pressure in the rod
chamber is changing in the expreriments. The results are Figure 11 Relation between Coulomb friction force and
given in Figure 9. where, differetial pressure Δp is changing differential pressures
defined plus when the pressure in the rod chamber is
below the pressure in the rodless chamber.

40
Δp = - 300 kPa
35 Experiment Data
Fitted Curve

30 Δp = - 200 kPa
Fr ict ion Force (N)

25 Δp = - 100 kPa

20
Δp = 0 kPa
15
Δp = 100 kPa
10 Δp = 200 kPa
Figure 12 Relation between Stribeck velocity and
5
changing differential pressures
Maximum stiction friction force (N)

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Velocity (mm /s )
Figure 9 Experiment data and fittied steady-state
friction-velocity curve of the single rod low-friction
cylinder with changing differential pressures

Figure 13 Relation between maximum stiction friction

force and changing differential pressures

Based on the experiment data, the steady-state

parameters of the model under variable differentila

Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6

281
pressure are calculated and shown in Figure 10~13.
Figure 10, Figure 11 and Figure 13 indicate individually
that Coulomb friction force, viscous friction coefficient
and maximum stiction friction force are all decreasing
with the raising differential pressure nearly linear.
While, Figure 12 indicates that Stribeck velocity is
decreasing with the raising working pressure. Those
results can be explained that the total pressure acting on
the seal rings is decreasing with the rising differential
pressure. Therefore, the force of the ring against the
cylinder wall and the piston rod becomes smaller almost
proportionally and the boundary lubrication condition is
improved.
The influence of working pressure on dynamic-state
parameters
In this section, the cylinder is driven to do a short-stroke
reciprocating motion with a low speed 0.5mm/s, while
its both chambers of the cylinder stable on the the same
pressures with the precise pressure regulators. After
every three cycles, the pressure in the chambers changes.
The results are given in Figure 14.
Figure 14 Driving force-displacement curve of the
cylinder in reciprocating motion under different
working pressure
As it shows, the slopes of the driving
force-displacement curves in the pre-move period of
very cycle almost rarely change. That means, according
to Eq. (12), the parameter Stiffness of the bristles σ0 can
be regarded as a constant while working pressure
changes. Then, according to Eq. (11), the parameter
Damping coefficient of the bristles σ1.can also be
regarded as a constant, because the parameter Viscous
friction coefficient σ2 is too small to be considered in
comparison.
The influence of differential pressure on
dynamic-state parameters
Here, the cylinder is driven to do a short-stroke
reciprocating motion with a low speed 0.5mm/s too.
282
The pressure in the rodless chamber of the cylinder is
fixed to 300KPa while the pressure in the rod chamber
is changing in the expreriments. The results are given in
Figure 15. where, differetial pressure Δp is defined
plus when the pressure in the rod chamber is below the
pressure in the rodless chamber. After every three cycles,
the pressure in the rod chamber changes.
The results are given in Figure 15.
50
Δp = - 300 kPa
40
Δp = - 200 kPa
30 Δp = - 100 kPa
Δp = 0 kPa
20 Δp = 100 kPa
10 Δp = 200 kPa
0
- 10
- 20
- 30
- 40
- 50
- 1.5 -1 - 0. 5 0 0.5 1 1 .5
Displacement (mm)
Figure 15 Driving force-displacement curve of the
cylinder in reciprocating motion under changing
differential pressure
As slopes of the driving force-displacement curves in
the pre-move period of very cycle in Figure 15 also
change little just like those in Figure 14, it can be said
that the influence of differential pressure on the
parameter σ0 and σ1is small too.
Those results can be explained into that the dynamic
parameter σ0 represents the axial stiffness coefficient of
seal rings indeed. Therefore, the value of it is only
associated with the material characteristics of itself and
the ambient temperature, but has nothing to do with the
pressure. And because the dynamic parameter σ2
represents the damping coefficient of the rings indeed,
its value may also has little relation with the pressure
too.
Modify the parameters of LuGre model
With the experiment results above, it is clear that the
working pressure and the differential pressure do have
influence on the steady-state parameters but less on the
dynamic-state parameters. It is needed to introduce
these influencing factors into LuGre model to make it fit
the practical application.
As it has been discussed, both the working pressure and
the differential pressure almost have linear relation with
the value of parameters Fc, Fs, vs andσ2, the proportional
coefficient can be added to define the parameters. In this
way, the LuGre model is now given as:
Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6
 dz Suppose it is needed to find out the friction-velocity
 F   0 z   1 dt   2v characterics of the cylinder with the condition p1 is
 300kPa and p2 is 400kPa, which has not been tested
 Fss ( v )  Fc sgn(v )  ( Fs  Fc )e s   2 v
 ( v / v )2 before, we can get it soon by simulation based on Eq.
 (15). Comparing the simulation data with the
 Fc  Fc0  k1 ps  k2 p (13)
experiment data we got later, the Figure 16 is obtained.
 F  F  k p  k p As figure 16 shows, the simulation data curve is very
 s s0 3 s 4
close to the experiment data. The maximum error
 s
v  v s0  k p
5 s  k 6 p between then is less than 2N. It is validated that the
    k p  k p modified LuGre model with the parameters indentified
 2 20 7 s 8
can describes the friction characteristics of the
pneumatic cylinder with high precision.
The parameters Fc0, Fs0, vs0, σ20, σ0, and σ1 can be
identified by the means of the experiment data on the
condition that the pressure in both chamber of the CONCLUSIONS
cylinder keep on 0kPa. Then, the parameters k1~k8 can A new method of identifying parameters of the LuGre
be identified with the experiment data with variant Model, which is a nice friction model that can describe
working pressure ps and differential pressure Δp. The the friction phenomenon of pneumatic cylinders
relation between ps and Δp The relationship between ps comprehensively, is presented. Corresponding to the
and Δp is defined as: method, a new experimental bench, on which the
moving of pneumatic cylinder is driven by a servo
(14) motor accurately, was developed to obtain precise
experiment data for the parameters identification. As
experiment data shows that the working pressure and
the differential pressure both almost have linear relation
EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION with the value of steady-state parameters Coulomb
friction force Fc, Maximum stiction friction force Fs,
With the previous experiment data, we have identified Stribeck velocity vs and viscous friction coefficientσ2,
all the parameters of the LuGre model for the single rod but have little influence on the dynamic-state
low-friction cylinder, as Eq. (15) shows. parameters Stiffness of the bristles σ0 and Damping
coefficient of the bristles σ1, the LuGre Mode was
 Fss ( v )  Fc sgn( v )  ( Fs  Fc )e  ( v / vs )   2 v
2
modified to introduce the influence of pressure. A
 following experiment was carried out and its results
 Fc  2.856  0.772 ps  0.5843p ( N )
 (15) verified that the modified model is precise and the
 Fs  3.904  7.152 ps  4.0386p ( N ) parameters identify method is effective.
 v  2.3892  0.3782 p  0.1134k p ( mm / s )
 s s 8

 2  0.0185  0.1032 ps  0.0627 p ( Ns / mm ) REFERENCES

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Copyright © 2011 by JFPS, ISBN 4-931070-08-6

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