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Space manipulator is considered as one of the most promising technologies for future space activities owing to its important role in various on-orbit serving missions. In this study, a robust finite-time tracking control method is proposed for the rapid and accurate trajectory tracking control of an attitude-controlled free-flying space manipulator in the presence of parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. First, a baseline finite-time tracking controller is designed to track the desired position of the space manipulator based on the homogeneous method. Then, a finite-time disturbance observer is designed to accurately estimate the lumped uncertainties. Finally, a robust finite-time tracking controller is developed by integrating the baseline finite-time tracking controller with the finite-time disturbance observer. Rigorous theoretical analysis for the global finite-time stability of the whole closed-loop system is provided. The proposed robust finite-time tracking controller has a relatively simple structure and can guarantee the position and velocity tracking errors converge to zero in finite time even subject to lumped uncertainties. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there are really limited existing controllers can achieve such excellent performance under the same conditions. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, distributed tracking control is studied for multiple Euler–Lagrange systems in the presence of external disturbances and input saturation. Specifically, full‐state constraints, input saturation, communication delays, and unmeasured velocities are all considered simultaneously. First, a novel event‐triggered scheme is developed to save the communication source and reduce computational load. Second, the anti‐saturation compensation algorithm is exploited to compensate for system saturation. Third, an adaptive law is designed to offset external disturbances. Moreover, a high‐gain observer is employed to estimate unmeasured velocities. Theorem analysis shows the stability of the closed‐loop system, and numerical simulations are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the trajectory tracking control problem of a planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft in the presence of position constraints and external disturbances. A novel robust constrained control approach is proposed by incorporating the barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) and nonlinear damping items within the framework of dynamic surface control design. The dynamic surface control is used to avoid the 'explosion of terms' problem of the traditional backstepping control. The tan-type BLF is utilised to preserve the position tracking errors always within the predefined position constraints. The nonlinear damping items are applied to handle the effect of external disturbances. The uniform ultimate boundedness of the resulting closed-loop system is rigorously proved through the Lyapunov's direct method. A distinct feature of the proposed control approach is that it is a general methodology for the trajectory tracking control of PVTOL aircraft with or without position constraints. Both theoretical analysis and numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness and benefits of the proposed control approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A low-conservative composite nonlinear feedback controller is proposed for singular time-delay systems with time-varying delay. The proposed composite nonlinear feedback controller not only improves the transient responses of the closed-loop system but it also has less conservatism than other composite nonlinear feedback controllers. The gain of the linear part of the composite nonlinear feedback controller is obtained by precise mathematical calculation to depend not only on the upper bound of the delay but also on the delay range and rate of its changes. More advantages of the proposed composite nonlinear feedback controller are its accurate operation in the presence of actuator saturation, model uncertainties, and system singularities. The linear and nonlinear parts of the proposed controller are designed by solving a linear matrix inequality problem confirmed through a theorem using Lyapunov stability analysis. The theoretical achievements are endorsed by computer simulation through numerical and practical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an adaptive robust boundary controller is designed for an unstable heat equation with external disturbance flowing into the control end. The disturbance and uncertainty effect is cancelled out in the closed-loop system by using on-line approximation of disturbance upper-bound provided as an output of adaptive robust update law. The asymptotic stability of the controlled system in the presence of unknown disturbance and/or parametric uncertainties is proved utilising the Lyapunov theorem. Unlike previous researches, the control implementation does not require prior knowledge of unknown disturbance. Moreover, the controller does not require measuring the system states or estimating the system states by an observer. The adaptive robust controller can be regarded as a combination of the best qualities of the adaptive controller and the robust controller with no prior knowledge of system uncertainty, and asymptotic tracking error performance. Numerical simulations and comparisons are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this paper, a unified distributed robust control framework is proposed to address the power sharing problem for a cluster of dispatchable distributed generators (DDGs) within a grid‐connected AC microgrid. In contrast to the existing results, the advantages of the proposed control design are threefold. First, the unified design can directly handle the dynamics of the closed‐loop system by Lyapunov analysis without the assumption on time scale separation. Second, the canonical internal model is adopted so that the controller is able to undertake arbitrarily large parametric uncertainties. Last not least, the associated control gains can be obtained once and for all following the standard procedure. Comprehensive numerical simulations are provided for performance validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles have become increasingly popular in several applications, and the improvement of their control performance has been documented in several studies. Nevertheless, the design of a high-performance tracking controller for aerial vehicles that reliably functions in the simultaneous presence of model uncertainties, external disturbances, and control input saturation still remains a challenge. In this paper, we present a robust backstepping trajectory tracking control of a quadrotor with input saturation. The controller design accounts for both parameterized uncertainties and external disturbances, whereas a new auxiliary system is proposed to cope with control input saturation. Taking into account that only the position and attitude of the quadrotor are measurable, we devise an extended state observer to supply the estimations of unmeasured states, model uncertainties, and external disturbances. We strictly prove the stability of the closed-loop system by using the Lyapunov theory and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm through numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents robust nonlinear control of a variable-pitch quadrotor with the flip maneuver. Backstepping approach is chosen for nonlinear control design. A control allocation loop dynamically computes the blade pitch angle of each rotor. A systematic method to select controller gains is presented that ensures closed-loop stability. Detailed analysis of the flip maneuver in the presence of input saturation is presented for the first time. Performance of the proposed control law is first verified through simulation. This is then implemented on a PixHawk open source autopilot board and flight tests are performed on an off-the-shelf variable-pitch quadrotor frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Grid voltage parameters are essential for the real-time control and protection in power systems. Current approaches mainly focus on the phase-locked loop methods, but which are slow and sensitive to voltage variations and disturbances. In this paper, the estimation of grid voltage parameters is recast as an observer design problem. A second-order sliding mode observer (SMO) is designed to estimate the grid voltage parameters based on the exosystem model. Moreover, the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop SMO is proved. Simulation and experimental results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which achieves fast response and accurate estimation Highlights • An exosystem model is introduced to represent the sinusoidal voltage. • A lowest-order sliding mode observer is designed to estimate grid voltage parameters. • The proposed approach achieves fast response and strong robustness with global stability. • The effectiveness is verified by both simulation and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper proposes a robust active fault‐tolerant control (AFTC) approach for medium‐scale unmanned autonomous helicopter (UAH) with rotor flapping dynamics in the presence of unknown external disturbances and actuator faults. The robust items are adopted to improve the disturbance rejection capability of the UAH system. The adaptive fault observers are developed to estimate the fault parameters and the fault detection (FD) algorithms are presented to detect the actuator faults in different loops. In order to obtain satisfactory trajectory tracking performance, a backstepping‐based robust AFTC scheme is designed for the simplified 6‐degree‐of‐freedom (DOF) UAH nonlinear dynamics model and the global stability of the closed‐loop system is proved by using the Lyapunov method. Several groups of numerical simulation results are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the developed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a kind of high-frequency feedback robust control for flocking of a multi-agent system with unknown parameters is put forward in detail. Firstly, a high-frequency feedback robust control scheme is proposed for the flocking problem of a multi-agent system with unknown parameters. Secondly, through the employment of Lyapunov stability theory, it's proved that velocity error is gradually stabilized and collisions between agents are also avoided. In addition, the high-frequency feedback robust control for flocking of a multi-agent system with unknown parameters is further proved. Finally, it is verified with the help of numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Uncertainty and disturbance widely exist in the process industry, which may deteriorate control performance if not well handled. The uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE) emerges as a promising solution by treating the external disturbances and internal uncertainties simultaneously as a lumped term. To overcome its limitation caused by time delay, a modified UDE (MUDE) has been proposed recently. However, its parameter tuning relies heavily on trial-and-error, thus being time-consuming in balancing the robustness and performance. To this end, this paper aims to develop an automatic tuning procedure for the MUDE-based control system. The quantitative relationship between system performance and the scaled parameters is empirically built. Iterative Feedback Tuning (IFT) is utilized to approximate the nominal model towards actual process. Through the empirical formula and optimized model, an automatic design procedure is proposed after taking into account the system robustness and output performance simultaneously. Simulation results show the superiority of the closed-loop performance over the original MUDE controllers. The experimental results validate the feasibility of the method proposed in this paper, depicting a promising prospect in the practical application. Highlights • Control system is designed after balancing robustness and output performance. • Control parameters are automatically tuned through iterative feedback tuning. • The proposed scheme reduces dependency on the process model and estimator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to solve the position tracking control problem for the permanent magnet linear motor by using the discrete-time fast terminal sliding mode control (SMC) method. Specifically, based on Euler's discretization technique, the approximate discrete-time model is first obtained and analyzed. Then, by introducing a new type of discrete-time fast terminal sliding surface, an improved discrete-time fast SMC method is developed and an equivalent-control-based fast terminal SMC law is subsequently designed. Rigorous analysis is provided to demonstrate that the fast terminal SMC law can offer a higher accuracy than the traditional linear SMC law. Numerical simulations and experimental results are finally performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and show the advantages of the present discrete-time fast terminal SMC approach over some existing approaches, such as discrete-time linear sliding mode control approach and the PID control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a strategy to solve the tracking and regulation problem for a 2DOF underactuated mass-spring-damper system with backlash on the underactuated joint, parametric uncertainties, and partial measurement of the state vector. The design of the controller is divided into two stages; in the first stage, it is assumed that the full state vector and all perturbations in the system are available. The model is divided into one actuated subsystem and one underactuated subsystem. The position of the actuated mass is defined as the control input of the underactuated subsystem, which is designed as an ideal controller that solves the tracking and regulation control problems for the underactuated mass. Finally, the control input of the actuated subsystem is designed to solve the tracking problem considering as a reference signal the control signal of the underactuated subsystem. The second stage solves the problem of the implementation of the previously designed ideal controller using the active disturbances rejection control structure (ADRC). Here state observers estimate the nonmeasured state variables and, at the same time, estimate perturbations and auxiliary signals for their compensation. The performance of the closed-loop system is illustrated by numerical simulations and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Input resetting control (IRC) is an economical and effective approach to achieve good closed-loop behavior for systems with extra inputs. The paper investigates use of the cascade IRC implementation. A SIMC-based controller tuning rule is proposed for first-order plus time delay (FOPTD) processes in the two-input-single-output (TISO) structure. Satisfactory regulatory capacities for both set-point tracking and input resetting are obtained. Both of the controllers are analytically derived with proportional-integral (PI) forms by proposing the equivalent transfer functions. The resulting tuning guideline shows how the adjustable parameters should be changed to balance a trade-off between performance specifications and levels of robustness. Numerical simulations have been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Moreover, the feasibility of implementing the proposed control strategy in practice is verified by a light intensity control experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an observer-based sliding mode control strategy for stabilizing the attitude of flapping micro-air vehicles in the presence of unknown uncertainties and external disturbances. First, a finite-time observer is designed to estimate the lumped disturbances. Next, a controller is developed to provide attitude stabilization with high robustness where the lumped disturbances could be completely rejected after a finite amount of time. The stability of the closed-loop system is rigorously proven. By employing MATLAB/Simulink software, a numerical simulation example including a comparison between the proposed method and a conventional sliding mode controller is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and to confirm the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new robust adaptive controller is investigated to force an underactuated surface marine vessel to follow a predefined parameterised path at a desired speed, despite actuator saturation and the presence of model uncertainties as well as environmental disturbances induced by waves, wind and sea-currents. To ensure robustness of the path-following controller, time-varying constraint on the off-track error (i.e. the maximal distance from the ship to the reference path) is considered. To address the off-track error constraint the tan-barrier Lyapunov function is incorporated with the control scheme, where the idea of auxiliary design system introduced in Chen, Sam, and Ren (2011) is adopted and its states are used in combination with backstepping and Lyapunov synthesis to adaptive tracking control design with guaranteed stability. Furthermore, the command filters are adopted to implement physical constraints on the virtual control laws so that analytic differentiation of the virtual control laws is avoided. We show that the proposed robust adaptive control law is able to guarantee semi-global uniform ultimate bounded stability of the closed-loop system. Numerical simulations and experimental results are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the design of a robust sliding mode-based extremum-seeking controller aimed at the online optimization of a class of uncertain reaction systems. The design methodology is based on an input-output linearizing method with variable-structure feedback, such that the closed-loop system converges to a neighborhood of the optimal set point with sliding mode motion. In contrast with previous extremum-seeking control algorithms, the control scheme includes a dynamic modelling-error estimator to compensate for unknown terms related with model uncertainties and unmeasured disturbances. The proposed online optimization scheme does not make use of a dither signal or a gradient-based optimization algorithm. Practical stabilizability for the closed-loop system around to the unknown optimal set point is analyzed. Numerical experiments for two nonlinear processes illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust control scheme. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a robust finite-time maneuver control scheme for the longitudinal attitude dynamic of the aircraft with unsteady aerodynamic disturbances and input saturation. To efficiently eliminate the influence of unsteady aerodynamic disturbances, nonlinear finite-time observers are developed. Despite the existence of the nonlinearity and the coupling between aircraft states and unsteady aerodynamic disturbances, the proposed observers can still precisely estimate the unmeasurable unsteady aerodynamic disturbances in finite time. To attenuate the effect caused by input saturation, a finite-time auxiliary system is constructed. With the error between the desired control input and saturation input as the input of the auxiliary system, the additional signals are generated to compensate for the effect of input saturation. Combined with the finite-time observers and the finite-time auxiliary system, a robust finite-time backstepping attitude control design is developed. The finite-time convergence of all closed-loop system signals is rigorously proved via Lyapunov analysis method under the developed robust attitude control schemes. Finally, simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed attitude control approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a reliable robust discrete gain scheduling controller is designed based on the linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and gain scheduling technology for the systems with the input saturation, system uncertainty, external disturbance and actuator failures. By the designed discrete gain scheduling controller, we can use a series of nesting ellipsoid invariant sets to strengthen the disturbance attenuation ability as strong as possible. It means that the innermost invariant ellipsoid set needs to be minimized to strengthen the disturbance attenuation ability. The dynamic performance of the closed-loop system is improved by introducing a parameter. By the Lyapunov approach, the existing conditions for the admissible controller can be formulated in the form of LMIs. The numerical simulation illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the problem of robust observer-based passive control for uncertain singular time-delay system subject to actuator saturation. A polytopic approach is used to describe the saturation behavior. First, by constructing Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, a less conservative sufficient condition is obtained which guarantees that the closed-loop system is regular, impulse free, stable and robust strictly passive. Then, with this condition, the design method of state feedback controller and the observer are given by solving linear matrix inequalities. In addition, a domain of attraction in which the admissible initial states are ensured to converge asymptotically to the origin is solved as a convex optimization problem. Finally, some simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variable structure model-reference adaptive control (VS-MRAC) of impedances and admittances (driving-point (DP) functions) is proposed. Only voltage and current measurements are required to implement the controllers. The inclusion of a prefilter in the reference model allows the synthesis of quite general DP functions, even with nonminimum phase zeros and unstable poles. It is shown that the stability of the closed-loop system depends only on the source DP function and the chosen reference model. The VS-MRAC guarantees global exponential stability properties, robustness to parameter uncertainties, disturbances, and unmodelled dynamics. Simulation results illustrate the performance and robustness of the VS-MRAC. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, maximum sensitivity and internal model control (IMC) based proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers are designed for unstable first-order plus-dead-time (UFOPDT) processes. The designed controller parameters are functions of the UFOPDT model parameters and the IMC closed loop tuning parameter. The tuning parameter plays a vital role and determines the closed loop performance and robustness of the designed controller. Systematic guidelines are provided for selection of this tuning parameter based on maximum sensitivity. Analytical tuning rules are developed for the controller parameters for different time delay to time constant ratios with desired level of robustness. These controller settings allow the operator to deal with the closed-loop control system performance-robustness trade-off by specifying the robustness level (maximum sensitivity). Simulation studies have been carried out on various UFOPDT processes to explain the advantages of the proposed analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is concerned with the asynchronous bumpless transfer (ABT) problem for a class of switched linear systems with external disturbances. Asynchronous switching or transfer implies that the transfers between sub-controllers and between sub-plants are asynchronous, and ABT is to ensure that there is no controller/plant-induced bumps or undesirable transients to the process. Specifically, the ABT process is first divided into two parts: robust performance bumpless transfer (RPBT) between sub-plants and robust control bumpless transfer (RCBT) between sub-controllers. Then, with a set of pre-given sub-plants under disturbances and corresponding sub-controllers, the RPBT and RCBT design schemes are, respectively, proposed. The designed RPBT and RCBT compensators are based on model reference adaptive sliding mode control such that the switched system can perform smooth transitions during the whole asynchronous switching process. Furthermore, by using average dwell time technique, the condition for guaranteeing the switched closed-loop system to be stable under ABT is developed. Finally, numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The robust resilient control problem is addressed for a class of impulsive switched systems under asynchronous switching. Through constructing the piecewise Lyapunov function, a robust resilient controller is designed initially, which, for all admissible uncertainties, guarantees that the corresponding closed-loop system is exponentially stable under asynchronous switching signals. Here, the average dwell time method is utilized and the estimate of the trajectory is also presented. For the convenience of computation, all conditions are cast into the form of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, numerical examples and simulation results are demonstrated to illustrate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A parameterised design of robust composite nonlinear controller is proposed for typical second-order servo systems subject to unknown constant disturbance and control input saturation. The control law consists of a linear feedback part for achieving fast response, a nonlinear feedback part for suppressing the overshoot, and a disturbance-compensation mechanism for erasing the steady-state error. An extended state observer is adopted to estimate the unknown disturbance. The closed-loop stability is analysed theoretically. The control scheme is applied to the speed regulation of permanent magnet synchronous motor, and numerical simulations are carried out. The results confirm that the proposed control scheme can achieve fast, smooth, and accurate speed regulation, and has a certain degree of robustness with respect to the amplitude of disturbances and the perturbations of system parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on the design and simulation of robust tracking control for an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle (AHV), which is affected by high nonlinearity, uncertain parameters and input constraints. The linearisation method is employed for the longitudinal AHV model about a specific trim condition, and then considering the additive uncertainties of three parameters, the linearised model is just in the form of affine parameter dependence. From this point, the linear parameter-varying method is applied to design the desired controller. The poles for the closed-loop system of the linearised model are placed into a desired vertical strip, and the quadratic stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed. Input constraints of the AHV are addressed by additional linear matrix inequalities. Finally, the designed controller is evaluated on the nonlinear AHV model and simulation results demonstrate excellent tracking performance with good robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, a design method for a PID controller is proposed based on IMC principles for control of open loop integrating and unstable first-order processes with time delay. The design is based on H2optimal closed-loop transfer function for set point changes and step input disturbances. The method has one tuning parameter, and systematic guidelines are provided for the selection of this tuning parameter based on peak value of the sensitivity function. The performance of the designed controller is verified on various integrating and unstable processes, and it is observed that nominal and robust control performance is achieved with the proposed design method. Improved closed-loop performance was obtained when compared to other methods recently reported in the literature. Further, the proposed method provides good closed-loop performance even when there are large uncertainties in the process parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]