Hydraulic valve assembly with automated tuning

A hydraulic valve assembly comprising:

• a valve body housing a spool, the valve body defining a bore in which the spool is positioned, the valve body having one or more ports in fluid communication with the bore for connecting the valve body to an actuator;
• a connector to connect the hydraulic valve to an external computing device;
• and
• an upper level controller and a lower level controller integrated with the hydraulic valve, the upper level controller including at least one processing device, and at least one computer readable data storage device configured to receive user specified parameter inputs and raw command inputs, the at least one computer readable data storage device storing instructions, when executed by the at least one processing device, cause the hydraulic valve to:
• convert the raw command inputs into shaped command inputs using a shaping algorithm;
• use the lower level controller to move the spool inside the valve body based on the shaped command input, and determine an error of the spool as a difference between target set points of the shaped command input and measurements of the actuator;
• determine a flow demand to obtain a target single port pressure or a target delta pressure based on the target set points of the shaped command input, the flow demand determined using port pressure measurements inside the valve body;
• use a valve database stored in the at least one computer readable data storage device to determine a spool correction command based on the determined flow demand;
• and
• send the spool correction command to the upper level controller to adjust the movement of the spool to reduce the determined error of the spool.