Robust converter-fed motor control based on active rejection of multiple disturbances

In this work, an advanced motion controller is proposed for buck converter-fed DC motor systems. The design is based on an idea of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) with its key component being a custom observer capable of reconstructing various types of disturbances (including complex, harmonic signals). A special formulation of the proposed design allows the control action to be expressed in a concise and practically appealing form reducing its implementation requirements. The obtained experimental results show increased performance of the introduced approach over conventionally used methods in tracking precision and disturbance rejection, while keeping similar level of energy consumption. A stability analysis using theory of singular perturbation further supports the validity of proposed control approach.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

A survey on fractional order control techniques for unmanned aerial and ground vehicles

In recent years, numerous applications of science and engineering for modeling and control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) systems based on fractional calculus have been realized. The extra fractional order derivative terms allow to optimizing the performance of the systems. The review presented in this paper focuses on the control problems of the UAVs and UGVs that have been addressed by the fractional order techniques over the last decade

Robust Control Methods for Nonlinear Systems with Uncertain Dynamics and Unknown Control Direction

Robust nonlinear control design strategies using sliding mode control (SMC) and integral SMC (ISMC) are developed, which are capable of achieving reliable and accurate tracking control for systems containing dynamic uncertainty, unmodeled disturbances, and actuator anomalies that result in an unknown and time-varying control direction. In order to ease readability of this dissertation, detailed explanations of the relevant mathematical tools is provided, including stability denitions, Lyapunov-based stability analysis methods, SMC and ISMC fundamentals, and other basic nonlinear control tools. The contributions of the dissertation are three novel control algorithms for three different classes of nonlinear systems: single-input multipleoutput (SIMO) systems, systems with model uncertainty and bounded disturbances, and systems with unknown control direction. Control design for SIMO systems is challenging due to the fact that such systems have fewer actuators than degrees of freedom to control (i.e., they are underactuated systems). While traditional nonlinear control methods can be utilized to design controllers for certain classes of cascaded underactuated systems, more advanced methods are required to develop controllers for parallel systems, which are not in a cascade structure. A novel control technique is proposed in this dissertation, which is shown to achieve asymptotic tracking for dual parallel systems, where a single scalar control input directly affects two subsystems. The result is achieved through an innovative sequential control design algorithm, whereby one of the subsystems is indirectly stabilized via the desired state trajectory that is commanded to the other subsystem. The SIMO system under consideration does not contain uncertainty or disturbances. In dealing with systems containing uncertainty in the dynamic model, a particularly challenging situation occurs when uncertainty exists in the input-multiplicative gain matrix. Moreover, special consideration is required in control design for systems that also include unknown bounded disturbances. To cope with these challenges, a robust continuous controller is developed using an ISMC technique, which achieves asymptotic trajectory tracking for systems with unknown bounded disturbances, while simultaneously compensating for parametric uncertainty in the input gain matrix. The ISMC design is rigorously proven to achieve asymptotic trajectory tracking for a quadrotor system and a synthetic jet actuator (SJA)-based aircraft system. In the ISMC designs, it is assumed that the signs in the uncertain input-multiplicative gain matrix (i.e., the actuator control directions) are known. A much more challenging scenario is encountered in designing controllers for classes of systems, where the uncertainty in the input gain matrix is extreme enough to result in an a priori-unknown control direction. Such a scenario can result when dealing with highly inaccurate dynamic models, unmodeled parameter variations, actuator anomalies, unknown external or internal disturbances, and/or other adversarial operating conditions. To address this challenge, a SMCbased self-recongurable control algorithm is presented, which automatically adjusts for unknown control direction via periodic switching between sliding manifolds that ultimately forces the state to a converging manifold. Rigorous mathematical analyses are presented to prove the theoretical results, and simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the three proposed control algorithms

Development of U-model enhanced nonlinear dynamic control systems —Framework, algorithms and validation

This study aims to develop the classical model-based U-control design framework to enhance its robustness and reduce its dependence on model accuracy. By absorbing the design concepts of other advanced control algorithms, firstly, based on the discrete-time U-control algorithm, a continuous-time (CT) U-model based dynamic inversion algorithm is proposed. Then the CT U-control system design procedures are presented and explained step by step with numerical and simulation demonstrations of the linear and nonlinear U-control system design examples. Secondly, the U-control algorithm develops two mainstream nonlinear robust control algorithms, disturbances suppression and disturbances compensation, while maintaining its system dynamic cancellation characteristics, including two-degree-of-freedom U-model-based internal model control (UTDF-IMC), Disturbance observer-based U-control (DOBUC), sliding mode enhanced U-control (U-SMC) and U-model based double sliding mode control (UDSMC) algorithms. At the same time this study first developed and applied the U-control method to a practical industry application: robust quadrotor trajectory tracking control. The proposed UDSMC method and multiple-input and multiple-output extended-state-observer (MIMO-ESO) established the quadrotor flight control system. The difficulties associated with quadrotor velocity measurement disturbances and uncertain aerodynamics are successfully addressed in this control design. A rigorous theoretical analysis has been carried out to determine whether the proposed control system can achieve stable trajectory tracking performance, and a comparative real-time experimental study has also been carried out to verify the better effectiveness of the proposed control system than the classical SMC and built-in PID control system. This study is clearly novel as the methods and experiments it proposed have not been researched before

Investigations of Model-Free Sliding Mode Control Algorithms including Application to Autonomous Quadrotor Flight

Sliding mode control is a robust nonlinear control algorithm that has been used to implement tracking controllers for unmanned aircraft systems that are robust to modeling uncertainty and exogenous disturbances, thereby providing excellent performance for autonomous operation. A significant advance in the application of sliding mode control for unmanned aircraft systems would be adaptation of a model-free sliding mode control algorithm, since the most complex and time-consuming aspect of implementation of sliding mode control is the derivation of the control law with incorporation of the system model, a process required to be performed for each individual application of sliding mode control. The performance of four different model-free sliding mode control algorithms was compared in simulation using a variety of aerial system models and real-world disturbances (e.g. the effects of discretization and state estimation). The two best performing algorithms were shown to exhibit very similar behavior. These two algorithms were implemented on a quadrotor (both in simulation and using real-world hardware) and the performance was compared to a traditional PID-based controller using the same state estimation algorithm and control setup. Simulation results show the model-free sliding mode control algorithms exhibit similar performance to PID controllers without the tedious tuning process. Comparison between the two model-free sliding mode control algorithms showed very similar performance as measured by the quadratic means of tracking errors. Flight testing showed that while a model-free sliding mode control algorithm is capable of controlling realworld hardware, further characterization and significant improvements are required before it is a viable alternative to conventional control algorithms. Large tracking errors were observed for both the model-free sliding mode control and PID based flight controllers and the performance was characterized as unacceptable for most applications. The poor performance of both controllers suggests tracking errors could be attributed to errors in state estimation, which effectively introduce unknown dynamics into the feedback loop. Further testing with improved state estimation would allow for more conclusions to be drawn about the performance characteristics of the model-free sliding mode control algorithms

Nonlinear ESO-based vibration control for an all-clamped piezoelectric plate with disturbances and time delay: design and hardware implementation

Considering the problems of model uncertainties, higher harmonics, uncertain boundary conditions, external excitations and system time delay in practical vibration control system, a novel active vibration control method is proposed to suppress the vibration of a thin plate structure with acceleration sensor and piezoelectric bimorph actuator in this paper. First, a nonlinear extended state observer (NESO)-based controller is designed to ensure the anti-disturbance performance of the structural vibration control system. Then, an enhanced differentiator-based time delay compensation method is introduced to improve the vibration suppression performance of the NESO-based controller. A real time hardware-in-the-loop benchmark for an all-clamped piezoelectric thin plate is designed to verify and compare the performance of the developed controller against conventional ESO-based methods (linear ESO with/without time delay compensation, NESO without time compensation). The best vibration suppression and disturbance rejection performance of the proposed NESO-based controller with an enhanced time delay compensator is verified in the comparative experimental results. This work is able to provide practitioners with vital guidance in designing active vibration control system in the presence of disturbances and time delay

Finite-time extended state observer and fractional-order sliding mode controller for impulsive hybrid port-Hamiltonian systems with input delay and actuators saturation: Application to ball-juggler robots

This paper addresses the robust control problem of mechanical systems with hybrid dynamics in port-Hamiltonian form. It is assumed that only the position states are measurable, and time-delay and saturation constraint affect the control signal. An extended state observer is designed after a coordinate transformation. The effect of the time delay in the control signal is neutralized by applying Pade ́ approximant and augmenting the system states. An assistant system with faster convergence is developed to handle actuators saturation. Fractional-order sliding mode controller acts as a centralized controller and compensates for the undesired effects of unknown external disturbance and parameter uncertainties using the observer estimation results. Stability analysis shows that the closed-loop system states, such as the observer tracking error, and the position/velocity tracking errors, are finite-time stable. Simulation studies on a two ball-playing juggler robot with three degrees of freedom validate the theoretical results’ effectiveness

Fault tolerant control of uncertain dynamical systems using interval virtual actuators

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Rotondo D, Cristofaro A, Johansen TA. Fault tolerant control of uncertain dynamical systems using interval virtual actuators. Int J Robust Nonlinear Control. 2018;28:611–624, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/rnc.3888. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.In this paper, a model reference fault tolerant control strategy based on a reconfiguration of the reference model, with the addition of a virtual actuator block, is presented for uncertain systems affected by disturbances and sensor noise. In particular, this paper (1) extends the reference model approach to the use of interval state observers, by considering an error feedback controller, which uses the estimated bounds for the error between the real state and the reference state, and (2) extends the virtual actuator approach to the use of interval observers, which means that the virtual actuator is added to the control loop to preserve the nonnegativity of the interval estimation errors and the boundedness of the involved signals, in spite of the fault occurrence. In both cases, the conditions to assure the desired operation of the control loop are provided in terms of linear matrix inequalities. An illustrative example is used to show the main characteristics of the proposed approach.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Fault tolerant control of uncertain dynamical systems using interval virtual actuators

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Rotondo D, Cristofaro A, Johansen TA. Fault tolerant control of uncertain dynamical systems using interval virtual actuators. Int J Robust Nonlinear Control. 2018;28:611–624, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/rnc.3888. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.In this paper, a model reference fault tolerant control strategy based on a reconfiguration of the reference model, with the addition of a virtual actuator block, is presented for uncertain systems affected by disturbances and sensor noise. In particular, this paper (1) extends the reference model approach to the use of interval state observers, by considering an error feedback controller, which uses the estimated bounds for the error between the real state and the reference state, and (2) extends the virtual actuator approach to the use of interval observers, which means that the virtual actuator is added to the control loop to preserve the nonnegativity of the interval estimation errors and the boundedness of the involved signals, in spite of the fault occurrence. In both cases, the conditions to assure the desired operation of the control loop are provided in terms of linear matrix inequalities. An illustrative example is used to show the main characteristics of the proposed approach.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft