Modeling Of a Hydraulic Elevator Driven by an Open-loop control

Electro-hydraulic elevators are widely used systems, especially in low level buildings, due to their very good ratio between power generation and dynamic response. Generally, the goal of an elevator system is just to reach the floor with a precision enough to be comfortable for the passengers, without the need to follow a specific law of motion; hence an open-loop control system could be enough. Otherwise such a kind of solution reduces the number of components, bringing down the costs of production. On the other hand a complete knowledge of the mechanical system’s behaviour is required. In this work we deal with the analysis of the behaviour of a commercial hydraulic elevator driven by an open loop control that monitors the downstream pressure of the proportional valve supplying the cylinder. At the end of the paper, a closed loop solution based on the pressure measurement and on the motion time is proposed.