Switch electro-hydraulic proportional amplifier（PA） widely employs single switch modulation power driving（SSMPD） or reverse discharging power driving（RDPD） at present. SSMPD has slow dynamic response, and can＇t adjust independently the dither signal＇s amplitude and frequency; RDPD accelerates the current decay; consequently, it increases current ripple and power loss. For the purpose of solving the above mentioned problem, the tri-state modulation power driving（TSMPD） scheme was proposed for improving the performance of power driving. Detailedly, the hardware circuit for the tri-state modulation power driving is designed; the tri-state modulation algorithm is realized by digital signal processor（DSP）. The tri-state modulation power driving is investigated by experiments, comparetive experiments among the single switch modulation power driving（SSMPD）, reverse discharging power driving（RDPD）, and the TSMPD are implemented, and the experimental results demonstrate that the linearity error of TSMDP meets the requirement of PA; the current response of TSMSP is the best; the amplitude of ripple current of the TSMPD can be reduced without increasing frequency of PWM, in addition, dither signal amplitude and frequency can be adjusted independently for each other. It is very meaningful to guide the development of high performance proportional amplifier for high frequency response proportional solenoid.
Though the traditional energy regeneration system（ERS） which used a hydraulic motor and a generator in hybrid excavators can regenerate part of the energy, the power of the motor and the generator should be larger and the time for regenerating energy is so short. At first, the structure of new ERS that combines the advantages of an electric and hydraulic accumulator is analyzed. The energy can be converted into both the electric energy and the hydraulic energy at the lowering of the boom and the generator can still works when the boom stops going down. Then, a method how to set the working pressure of the hydraulic accumulator is proposed. To avoid the excess loss, extra noise and shock pressure, a two-level pressure threshold method that the generator starts to work at the rising edge of the high pressure threshold and stops working at the falling edge of the low pressure threshold is presented to characterize the working mode of the generator. The control strategies on how to control the boom velocity at the lowering of the boom and how to improve the recovery efficiency when the boom stops going down are presented. The test bench of hybrid excavator with ERS is constructed, with which the studies on the influences of ERS on energy conversion efficiency and control performance are carried out. Experimental results show that the proposed ERS features better speed control performance of the boom than traditional ERS. It is also observed that an estimated 45% of the total potential energy could be regenerated at the lowering of the boom in the proposed ERS, and the power level of the generator and the hydraulic motor could be reduced by 60%. Hence, the proposed ERS has obvious advantages over the traditional ERS on the improvement of energy regeneration time, energy efficiency, control performance and economy.
