We consider the problem of designing distributed controllers to ensure
passivity of a large-scale interconnection of linear subsystems connected in a
cascade topology. The control design process needs to be carried out at the
subsystem-level with no direct knowledge of the dynamics of other subsystems in
the interconnection. We present a distributed approach to solve this problem,
where subsystem-level controllers are locally designed in a sequence starting
at one end of the cascade using only the dynamics of the particular subsystem,
coupling with the immediately preceding subsystem and limited information from
the preceding subsystem in the cascade to ensure passivity of the
interconnected system up to that point. We demonstrate that this design
framework also allows for new subsystems to be compositionally added to the
interconnection without requiring redesign of the pre-existing controllers.Comment: Accepted to appear in the proceedings of the American Control
Conference (ACC) 201