Low-Complexity Quantized Switching Controllers using Approximate Bisimulation

In this paper, we consider the problem of synthesizing low-complexity controllers for incrementally stable switched systems. For that purpose, we establish a new approximation result for the computation of symbolic models that are approximately bisimilar to a given switched system. The main advantage over existing results is that it allows us to design naturally quantized switching controllers for safety or reachability specifications; these can be pre-computed offline and therefore the online execution time is reduced. Then, we present a technique to reduce the memory needed to store the control law by borrowing ideas from algebraic decision diagrams for compact function representation and by exploiting the non-determinism of the synthesized controllers. We show the merits of our approach by applying it to a simple model of temperature regulation in a building

Symbolic models for nonlinear control systems without stability assumptions

Finite-state models of control systems were proposed by several researchers as a convenient mechanism to synthesize controllers enforcing complex specifications. Most techniques for the construction of such symbolic models have two main drawbacks: either they can only be applied to restrictive classes of systems, or they require the exact computation of reachable sets. In this paper, we propose a new abstraction technique that is applicable to any smooth control system as long as we are only interested in its behavior in a compact set. Moreover, the exact computation of reachable sets is not required. The effectiveness of the proposed results is illustrated by synthesizing a controller to steer a vehicle.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, journa