Delay-Based Controller Design for Continuous-Time and Hybrid Applications

Motivated by the availability of different types of delays in embedded systems and biological circuits, the objective of this work is to study the benefits that delay can provide in simplifying the implementation of controllers for continuous-time systems. Given a continuous-time linear time-invariant (LTI) controller, we propose three methods to approximate this controller arbitrarily precisely by a simple controller composed of delay blocks, a few integrators and possibly a unity feedback. Different problems associated with the approximation procedures, such as finding the optimal number of delay blocks or studying the robustness of the designed controller with respect to delay values, are then investigated. We also study the design of an LTI continuous-time controller satisfying given control objectives whose delay-based implementation needs the least number of delay blocks. A direct application of this work is in the sampled-data control of a real-time embedded system, where the sampling frequency is relatively high and/or the output of the system is sampled irregularly. Based on our results on delay-based controller design, we propose a digital-control scheme that can implement every continuous-time stabilizing (LTI) controller. Unlike a typical sampled-data controller, the hybrid controller introduced here -— consisting of an ideal sampler, a digital controller, a number of modified second-order holds and possibly a unity feedback -— is robust to sampling jitter and can operate at arbitrarily high sampling frequencies without requiring expensive, high-precision computation

Global Stabilization of Triangular Systems with Time-Delayed Dynamic Input Perturbations

A control design approach is developed for a general class of uncertain strict-feedback-like nonlinear systems with dynamic uncertain input nonlinearities with time delays. The system structure considered in this paper includes a nominal uncertain strict-feedback-like subsystem, the input signal to which is generated by an uncertain nonlinear input unmodeled dynamics that is driven by the entire system state (including unmeasured state variables) and is also allowed to depend on time delayed versions of the system state variable and control input signals. The system also includes additive uncertain nonlinear functions, coupled nonlinear appended dynamics, and uncertain dynamic input nonlinearities with time-varying uncertain time delays. The proposed control design approach provides a globally stabilizing delay-independent robust adaptive output-feedback dynamic controller based on a dual dynamic high-gain scaling based structure.Comment: 2017 IEEE International Carpathian Control Conference (ICCC

A generalized smith predictor for unstable time-delay SISO systems

[EN] In this work, a generalization of the Smith Predictor (SP) is proposed to control linear time-invariant (LTI) time-delay single-input single-output (SISO) systems. Similarly to the SP, the combination of any stabilizing output-feedback controller for the delay-free system with the proposed predictor leads to a stabilizing controller for the delayed system. Furthermore, the tracking performance and the steady-state disturbance rejection capabilities of the equivalent delay-free loop are preserved. In order to place this contribution in context, some modifications of the SP are revisited and recast under the same structure. The features of the proposed scheme are illustrated through simulations, showing a comparison with respect to the corresponding delay-free loop, which is here considered to be the ideal scenario. In order to emphasize the feasibility of this approach, a successful experimental implementation in a laboratory platform is also reported.This work was partially supported by the projects PROMETEOII/2013/004, Conselleria d'Educacio, Generalitat Valenciana; TIN2014-56158-C4-4-P-AR, Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad; and the FPI-UPV 2014 PhD Grant, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain.Sanz Díaz, R.; García Gil, PJ.; Albertos Pérez, P. (2017). A generalized smith predictor for unstable time-delay SISO systems. ISA Transactions. 72:197-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2017.09.020S1972047

Synthesis of embedded control systems with high sampling frequencies

Motivated by current technological advances in the design of real-time embedded systems, this work deals with the digital control of a continuous-time linear time-invariant (LTI) system whose output can be sampled at a high frequency. Since a typical sampled-data controller operating at a high sampling frequency needs heavy (high-precision) computation to alleviate its sensitivity to measurement and computational errors, the objective is to design a robust hybrid controller for high-frequency applications with limited computational power. To this end, we exploit our recent results on delay-based controller design and propose a digital-control scheme that can implement every continuous-time stabilizing (LTI) controller. This robust hybrid controller, which consists of an ideal sampler, a digital controller, a number of modified second-order holds and possibly a unity feedback, can operate at arbitrarily high sampling frequencies without requiring expensive, high-precision computation. We also discuss how to find a continuous-time LTI controller satisfying prescribed design specifications so that its corresponding digital controller requires the least processing time

On the Stabilization through Linear Output Feedback of a Class of Linear Hybrid Time-Varying Systems with Coupled Continuous/Discrete and Delayed Dynamics with Eventually Unbounded Delay

This research studies a class of linear, hybrid, time-varying, continuous time-systems with time-varying delayed dynamics and non-necessarily bounded, time-varying, time-differentiable delay. The considered class of systems also involves a contribution to the whole delayed dynamics with respect to the last preceding sampled values of the solution according to a prefixed constant sampling period. Such systems are also subject to linear output-feedback time-varying control, which picks-up combined information on the output at the current time instant, the delayed one, and its discretized value at the preceding sampling instant. Closed-loop asymptotic stabilization is addressed through the analysis of two “ad hoc” Krasovskii–Lyapunov-type functional candidates, which involve quadratic forms of the state solution at the current time instant together with an integral-type contribution of the state solution along a time-varying previous time interval associated with the time-varying delay. An analytic method is proposed to synthesize the stabilizing output-feedback time-varying controller from the solution of an associated algebraic system, which has the objective of tracking prescribed suited reference closed-loop dynamics. If this is not possible—in the event that the mentioned algebraic system is not compatible—then a best approximation of such targeted closed-loop dynamics is made in an error-norm sense minimization. Sufficiency-type conditions for asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system are also derived based on the two mentioned Krasovskii–Lyapunov functional candidates, which involve evaluations of the contributions of the delay-free and delayed dynamics.This research was funded by the Spanish Government and the European Commission through Grant RTI2018-094336-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE)

A unified smith predictor approach for power system damping control design using remote signals

Published versio

System Level Synthesis

This article surveys the System Level Synthesis framework, which presents a novel perspective on constrained robust and optimal controller synthesis for linear systems. We show how SLS shifts the controller synthesis task from the design of a controller to the design of the entire closed loop system, and highlight the benefits of this approach in terms of scalability and transparency. We emphasize two particular applications of SLS, namely large-scale distributed optimal control and robust control. In the case of distributed control, we show how SLS allows for localized controllers to be computed, extending robust and optimal control methods to large-scale systems under practical and realistic assumptions. In the case of robust control, we show how SLS allows for novel design methodologies that, for the first time, quantify the degradation in performance of a robust controller due to model uncertainty -- such transparency is key in allowing robust control methods to interact, in a principled way, with modern techniques from machine learning and statistical inference. Throughout, we emphasize practical and efficient computational solutions, and demonstrate our methods on easy to understand case studies.Comment: To appear in Annual Reviews in Contro