Title:Digital Hydraulics for an Industrial Micro-Positioning SystemAuthor(s):Andreas Plöckinger, Bernd Winkler, Paul Foschum, Rudolf ScheidlAbstract:At the 13th Mechatronics Forum International Conference in 2013 a novel Micro-Positioning System for a multispindle milling machine was presented. The purpose of this system is to compensate relative positioning errors of simultaneously operating spindles of multi spindle mill centres. In the first system a fast proportional control valve was used to fulfil the needs on reaction time and accuracy. This paper reports about a digital hydraulic control concept for the micro-positioning drive replacing the proportional valve of the first system. The use of fast digital valves in combination with a standard industrial motion controller allows an increase of the accuracy compared to proportional valve control. The absolute position accuracy of that digital system depends much more on the precision of the position sensor than on this drive's performance limits and can be better than 1μm. Besides the improved accuracy additional benefits of the digital drive system are: no drifting and energy savings because of a missing leakage and by far lower oil quality requirements.Booktitle:Proceedings of the 9th International Fluid Power Conference (9th IFK), 24th - 26th March 2014, Aachen, GermanyEditor(s):Hubertus MurrenhoffISBN:978-3-9816480-0-3Page Reference:page 478-489, 12 page(s)Publishing:3/2014Volume:1