Equivalence of robust stabilization and robust performance via feedback

One approach to robust control for linear plants with structured uncertainty as well as for linear parameter-varying (LPV) plants (where the controller has on-line access to the varying plant parameters) is through linear-fractional-transformation (LFT) models. Control issues to be addressed by controller design in this formalism include robust stability and robust performance. Here robust performance is defined as the achievement of a uniform specified $L^{2}$-gain tolerance for a disturbance-to-error map combined with robust stability. By setting the disturbance and error channels equal to zero, it is clear that any criterion for robust performance also produces a criterion for robust stability. Counter-intuitively, as a consequence of the so-called Main Loop Theorem, application of a result on robust stability to a feedback configuration with an artificial full-block uncertainty operator added in feedback connection between the error and disturbance signals produces a result on robust performance. The main result here is that this performance-to-stabilization reduction principle must be handled with care for the case of dynamic feedback compensation: casual application of this principle leads to the solution of a physically uninteresting problem, where the controller is assumed to have access to the states in the artificially-added feedback loop. Application of the principle using a known more refined dynamic-control robust stability criterion, where the user is allowed to specify controller partial-state dimensions, leads to correct robust-performance results. These latter results involve rank conditions in addition to Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) conditions.Comment: 20 page

Robust control of ill-conditioned plants: high-purity distillation

Using a high-purity distillation column as an example, the physical reason for the poor conditioning and its implications on control system design and performance are explained. It is shown that an acceptable performance/robustness tradeoff cannot be obtained by simple loop-shaping techniques (using singular values) and that a good understanding of the model uncertainty is essential for robust control system design. Physically motivated uncertainty descriptions (actuator uncertainties) are translated into the H∞/structured singular value framework, which is demonstrated to be a powerful tool to analyze and understand the complex phenomena

Robustness and performance trade-offs in control design for flexible structures

Linear control design models for flexible structures are only an approximation to the “real” structural system. There are always modeling errors or uncertainty present. Descriptions of these uncertainties determine the trade-off between achievable performance and robustness of the control design. In this paper it is shown that a controller synthesized for a plant model which is not described accurately by the nominal and uncertainty models may be unstable or exhibit poor performance when implemented on the actual system. In contrast, accurate structured uncertainty descriptions lead to controllers which achieve high performance when implemented on the experimental facility. It is also shown that similar performance, theoretically and experimentally, is obtained for a surprisingly wide range of uncertain levels in the design model. This suggests that while it is important to have reasonable structured uncertainty models, it may not always be necessary to pin down precise levels (i.e., weights) of uncertainty. Experimental results are presented which substantiate these conclusions

Crone control of a nonlinear hydraulic actuator

The CRONE control (fractional robust control) of a hydraulic actuator whose dynamic model is nonlinear is presented. An input-output linearization under diffeomorphism and feedback is first achieved for the nominal plant. The relevance of this linearization when the parameters of the plant vary is then analyzed using the Volterra input-output representation in the frequency domain. CRONE control based on complex fractional differentiation is finally applied to control the velocity of the input-output linearized model when parametric variations occur

Robust Constrained Model Predictive Control using Linear Matrix Inequalities

The primary disadvantage of current design techniques for model predictive control (MPC) is their inability to deal explicitly with plant model uncertainty. In this paper, we present a new approach for robust MPC synthesis which allows explicit incorporation of the description of plant uncertainty in the problem formulation. The uncertainty is expressed both in the time domain and the frequency domain. The goal is to design, at each time step, a state-feedback control law which minimizes a "worst-case" infinite horizon objective function, subject to constraints on the control input and plant output. Using standard techniques, the problem of minimizing an upper bound on the "worst-case" objective function, subject to input and output constraints, is reduced to a convex optimization involving linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). It is shown that the feasible receding horizon state-feedback control design robustly stabilizes the set of uncertain plants under consideration. Several extensions, such as application to systems with time-delays and problems involving constant set-point tracking, trajectory tracking and disturbance rejection, which follow naturally from our formulation, are discussed. The controller design procedure is illustrated with two examples. Finally, conclusions are presented

Input-output linearization and fractional robust control of a non-linear system

This article deals with the association of a linear robust controller and an input-output linearization feedback for the control of a perturbed and non-linear system. This technique is applied to the control of a hydraulic system whose actuator is non-linear and whose load is time-variant. The piston velocity of the actuator needs to be controlled and a pressure-difference inner-loop is used to improve the performance. To remove the effect of the non-linearity, an input-output linearization under diffeomorphism and feedback is achieved. CRONE control, based on complex fractional differentiation, is applied to design a controller for piston-velocity loop even when parametric variations occu

Stability and Performance Analysis of Systems Under Constraints

All real world control systems must deal with actuator and state constraints. Standard conic sector bounded nonlinearity stability theory provides methods for analyzing the stability and performance of systems under constraints, but it is well-known that these conditions can be very conservative. A method is developed to reduce conservatism in the analysis of constraints by representing them as nonlinear real parametric uncertainty

Dynamical Analysis and Robust Control Synthesis for Water Treatment Processes

Nowadays, water demand and water scarcity are very urgent issues due to population growth, drought and poor water quality all over the world. Therefore, water treatment plants are playing a vital role for good living condition of human. Water area needs more concentration study to increase water productivity and decrease water cost. This dissertation presents the analysis and control of water treatment plants using robust control techniques. The applied control algorithms include H∞, gain scheduled and observer-based loop-shaping control technique. They are modern control algorithms and very powerful in robust controlling of systems with uncertainties and disturbances. The water treatment plants include a desalination system and a wastewater process. Since fresh water scarcity is getting more serious, the desalination plants are to produce drinking water and wastewater treatment plants give the reusable water. The desalination system is a RO one used to produce drinking water from seawater and brackish water. The nonlinear behaviors of this system is carefully analyzed before the linearization. Due to the uncertainty caused by concentration polarization, the system is linearized using linear state-space parametric uncertainty framework. The system also suffer from many disturbances which water hammer is one of the most influential one. The mixed robust H∞ and μ-synthesis control algorithm is applied to control the RO system coping with large uncertainties, disturbances and noises. The wastewater treatment process is an activated sludge process. This biological process use microorganisms to convert organic and certain inorganic matter from wastewater into cell mass. The process is very complex with many coupled biological and chemical reactions. Due to the large variation in the influent flow, the system is modelized and linearized as a linear parametric varying system using affine parameter-dependent representation. Since the influent flow is quickly variable and easily to be measured, the robust gain scheduled robust controller is applied to deal with the large uncertainty caused by the scheduled parameter. This control algorithm often gives better performances than those of general robust H∞ one. In the wastewater treatment plant, there exist an anaerobic digestion, which is controlled by the observer-based loop-shaping algorithm. The simulations show that all the controllers can effectively deal with large uncertainties, disturbances and noises in water treatment plants. They help improve the system performances and safeties, save energy and reduce product water costs. The studies contribute some potential control approaches for water treatment plants, which is currently a very active research area in the world.Contents ······················································································· iv List of Tables ··············································································· viii List of Figures ··············································································· ix Chapter 1. Introduction ···································································· 1 1.1 Reverse osmosis process ···································································· 2 1.2 Activated sludge process ···································································· 6 1.3 Robust H∞ and gain scheduling control ··················································· 10 Chapter 2. Robust H∞ controller ······················································· 13 2.1 Introduction ·················································································· 13 2.2 Uncertainty modelling ······································································ 13 2.2.1 Unstructured uncertainties ···························································· 14 2.2.2 Parametric uncertainties ······························································· 15 2.2.3 Structured uncertainties ································································ 16 2.2.4 Linear fractional transformation ······················································ 16 2.3 Stability criterion ············································································ 17 2.3.1 Small gain theorem ····································································· 17 2.3.2 Structured singular value (muy) synthesis brief definition ·························· 19 2.4 Robustness analysis and controller design ··············································· 20 2.4.1 Forming generalised plant and N-delta structure ····································· 20 2.4.2 Robustness analysis ···································································· 24 2.5 Reduced controller ·········································································· 26 2.5.1 Truncation ··············································································· 27 2.5.2 Residualization ········································································· 29 2.5.3 Balanced realization···································································· 29 2.5.4 Optimal Hankel norm approximation ················································ 31 Chapter 3. Robust gain scheduling controller ······································· 37 3.1 Introduction ·················································································· 37 3.2 Linear parameter varying (LPV) system ·················································· 39 3.3 Matrix Polytope ·············································································· 40 3.4 Polytope and affine parameter-dependent representation ······························· 41 3.4.1 Polytope representation ································································ 41 3.4.2 Affine parameter-dependent representation ········································· 42 3.5 Quadratic stability of LPV systems and quadratic (robust) H∞ performance ········· 43 3.6 Robust gain scheduling ····································································· 44 3.6.1 LPV system linearization ······························································ 44 3.6.2 Polytope-based gain scheduling ······················································ 45 3.6.3 LFT-based gain scheduling ··························································· 48 Chapter 4. Mixed robust H∞ and μ-synthesis controller applied for a reverse osmosis desalination system ····························································· 52 4.1 RO principles ················································································ 52 4.1.1 Osmosis and reverse osmosis ························································· 52 4.1.2 Dead-end filtration and cross-flow filtration ········································ 53 4.2 Membranes ··················································································· 54 4.2.1 Structure and material ································································· 54 4.2.2 Hollow fine fiber membrane module ················································ 55 4.2.3 Spiral wound membrane module ····················································· 57 4.3 Nonlinear RO modelling and analysis ···················································· 58 4.3.1 RO system introduction ······························································· 58 4.3.2 Modelling ··············································································· 60 4.3.3 Nonlinear analysis ······································································ 62 4.3.4 Concentration polarization ···························································· 64 4.4 Water hammer phenomenon ······························································· 66 4.4.1 Water hammer, column separation and vaporous cavitation ······················ 66 4.4.2 Water hammer analysis and simulation ·············································· 69 4.4.3 Prevention of water hammer effect··················································· 78 4.5 RO linearization ············································································· 79 4.5.1 Nominal linearization ·································································· 79 4.5.2 Uncertainty modeling ·································································· 81 4.5.3 Parametric uncertainty linearization ················································· 83 4.6 Robust H∞ controller design for RO system ·············································· 85 4.6.1 Control of uncertain RO system ······················································ 85 4.6.2 Robustness analysis and H∞ controller design ······································ 86 4.7 Simulation result and discussion··························································· 90 4.8 Conclusion ··················································································· 95 Chapter 5. Robust gain scheduling control of activated sludge process ······· 96 5.1 Introduction about activated sludge process ············································· 96 5.1.1 State variables ·········································································· 98 5.1.2 ASM1 processes ······································································ 100 5.1.3 The control problem of activated sludge process ································· 102 5.2 System modelling ········································································· 104 5.3 Model linearization ········································································ 107 5.4 Robust gain-schedule controller design for activated sludge process ··············· 109 5.5 Simulation result and discussion························································· 115 5.6 Conclusion ················································································· 120 Chapter 6. Observer-based loop-shaping control of anaerobic digestion ···· 121 6.1 Introduction ················································································ 121 6.1.1 Control problem in anaerobic digestion ··········································· 122 6.2 System modelling ········································································· 123 6.3 Controller design ·········································································· 124 6.3.1 H∞ loop-shaping controller ························································· 125 6.3.2 Coprime factor uncertainty ·························································· 126 6.3.3 Control synthesis ····································································· 127 6.4 Simulation result ··········································································· 131 6.5 Conclusion ················································································· 133 Chapter 7. Conclusion ··································································· 134 References ·················································································· 136 Appendices ················································································· 144Docto

Study of two robust controls for an hydraulic actuator

Two robust control design methodologies are analyzed and compared in this article: the H-infinity control system design and the CRONE control system design. The aim of this article is to give practical considerations that will help a designer to choose between these two methodologies. The example of an electrohydraulic actuator is given in order to evaluate the implementation of each methodology and to compare the final performance

Average-cost based robust structural control

A method is presented for the synthesis of robust controllers for linear time invariant structural systems with parameterized uncertainty. The method involves minimizing quantities related to the quadratic cost (H2-norm) averaged over a set of systems described by real parameters such as natural frequencies and modal residues. Bounded average cost is shown to imply stability over the set of systems. Approximations for the exact average are derived and proposed as cost functionals. The properties of these approximate average cost functionals are established. The exact average and approximate average cost functionals are used to derive dynamic controllers which can provide stability robustness. The robustness properties of these controllers are demonstrated in illustrative numerical examples and tested in a simple SISO experiment on the MIT multi-point alignment testbed