Robust output stabilization: improving performance via supervisory control

We analyze robust stability, in an input-output sense, of switched stable systems. The primary goal (and contribution) of this paper is to design switching strategies to guarantee that input-output stable systems remain so under switching. We propose two types of {\em supervisors}: dwell-time and hysteresis based. While our results are stated as tools of analysis they serve a clear purpose in design: to improve performance. In that respect, we illustrate the utility of our findings by concisely addressing a problem of observer design for Lur'e-type systems; in particular, we design a hybrid observer that ensures ``fast'' convergence with ``low'' overshoots. As a second application of our main results we use hybrid control in the context of synchronization of chaotic oscillators with the goal of reducing control effort; an originality of the hybrid control in this context with respect to other contributions in the area is that it exploits the structure and chaotic behavior (boundedness of solutions) of Lorenz oscillators.Comment: Short version submitted to IEEE TA

A passivity approach to controller-observer design for robots

Passivity-based control methods for robots, which achieve the control objective by reshaping the robot system's natural energy via state feedback, have, from a practical point of view, some very attractive properties. However, the poor quality of velocity measurements may significantly deteriorate the control performance of these methods. In this paper the authors propose a design strategy that utilizes the passivity concept in order to develop combined controller-observer systems for robot motion control using position measurements only. To this end, first a desired energy function for the closed-loop system is introduced, and next the controller-observer combination is constructed such that the closed-loop system matches this energy function, whereas damping is included in the controller- observer system to assure asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. A key point in this design strategy is a fine tuning of the controller and observer structure to each other, which provides solutions to the output-feedback robot control problem that are conceptually simple and easily implementable in industrial robot applications. Experimental tests on a two-DOF manipulator system illustrate that the proposed controller-observer systems enable the achievement of higher performance levels compared to the frequently used practice of numerical position differentiation for obtaining a velocity estimat

Active vibration control techniques for flexible space structures

Two proposed control system design techniques for active vibration control in flexible space structures are detailed. Control issues relevant only to flexible-body dynamics are addressed, whereas no attempt was made to integrate the flexible and rigid-body spacecraft dynamics. Both of the proposed approaches revealed encouraging results; however, further investigation of the interaction of the flexible and rigid-body dynamics is warranted

Optimized active disturbance rejection control for DC-DC buck converters with uncertainties using a reduced-order GPI observer

The output voltage regulation problem of a PWM- based DC-DC buck converter under various sources of uncertainties and disturbances is investigated in this paper via an optimized active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) approach. Aiming to practical implementation, a new reduced-order generalized proportional integral (GPI) observer is first designed to estimate the lumped (possibly time-varying) disturbances within the DC- DC circuit. By integrating the disturbance estimation information raised by the reduced-order GPI observer (GPIO) into the output prediction, an optimized ADRC method is developed to achieve optimized tracking performance even in the presence of distur- bances and uncertainties. It is shown that the proposed controller will guarantee the rigorous stability of closed-loop system, for any bounded uncertainties of the circuit, by appropriately choosing the observer gains and the bandwidthfactor. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed control solution is characterised by improved robustness performance against various disturbances and uncertainties compared to traditional ADRC and integral MPC approaches

An energy based formalism for state estimation and motion control

This work presents an energy based state estimation formalism for a class of dynamical systems with inaccessible/unknown outputs and systems at which sensor utilization is costly, impractical or measurements can not be taken. The physical interactions among most of the dynamical subsystems represented mathematically in terms of Dirac structures allow power exchange through the power ports of these subsystems. Power exchange is conceptually considered as information exchange among the dynamical subsystems and further utilized to develop a natural feedback-like information from a class of dynamical systems with inaccessible/unknown outputs. The feedback-like information is utilized in realizing state observers for this class of dynamical systems. Necessary and sufficient conditions for observability are studied. In addition, estimation error asymptotic convergence stability of the proposed energy based state variable observer is proved for systems with linear and nonlinear dynamics. Robustness of the asymptotic convergence stability is analyzed over a range of parameter deviations, model uncertainties and unknown initial conditions. The proposed energy based state estimation formalism allows realization of the motion and force control from measurements taken from a single subsystem within the entire dynamical system. This in turn allows measurements to be taken from this single subsystem, whereas the rest of the dynamical system is kept free from measurements. Experiments are conducted on dynamical systems with single input and multiple inaccessible outputs in order to verify the validity of the proposed energy based state estimation and control formalism