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This paper proposes a long-horizon direct model predictive control (MPC) with reference tracking for medium-voltage (MV) drives that achieves favorable steady-state and transient behavior. However, as MPC is a model-based method, it is susceptible to parameter mismatches and variations of the machine. Moreover, even though a long prediction horizon significantly improves the steady-state behavior of the drive, it significantly increases the computational complexity of the direct MPC problem, rendering its real-time implementation a challenging—if not impossible—task. Motivated by these shortcomings of long-horizon direct MPC, this paper also aims to address them by enhancing the robustness of the developed control strategy, while keeping its computational complexity modest. To achieve the former, a prediction model suitable for MV drive systems is adopted that facilitates the effective estimation of the total leakage inductance of the machine. For the latter, the objective function of the MPC problem is formulated such that, even though the drive behavior is computed over a long prediction interval, only a few changes in the candidate switch positions are considered. The effectiveness of the proposed modeling, control, and estimation approaches is validated with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests for an MV drive consisting of a three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter and an induction machine (IM). acceptedVersion

This study investigates the problem of fault estimation and control for unknown discrete-time systems. Such a problem was first formulated as an multiobjective optimization problem. Then, a data-driven parameterization controller design method was proposed to optimize both fault estimation and robust control performances. In terms of the single-objection control problem, necessary and sufficient conditions for designing the suboptimal controller were presented, and the performance index optimized by the developed data-driven method was shown to be consistent with that of the model-based method. In addition, by introducing additional slack variables into the controller design conditions, the conservatism of solving the multiobjective optimization problem was reduced. Furthermore, contrary to the existing data-driven controller design methods, the initial stable controller was not required, and the controller gain was directly parameterized by the collected state and input data in this work. Finally, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed method are shown in the simulation results.

Microgrid is a key to an efficient and resilient power grid operation. Thus in this paper, a robust control scheme is implemented namely modified frequency locked loop (MFLL), proficient in eliminating the voltage and current fluctuations because of phase/frequency variation. Therefore, enhancing the consistency of the supply across nonlinear load through a smooth transition from utility-interactive to islanded mode. It also achieves accelerated convergence and reduced steady-state error. MFLL is an easy control technique, with only one interfacing voltage source converter, which delivers a stable supply to critical loads during different operating modes. The implemented system has the main advantage of the capability of power-sharing between distributed generations (DGs) systems while regulating the voltage at the DC link. It also provides power quality improvement through harmonics suppression; voltage regulation during contingencies like unbalance in load and compensation in reactive power at the common coupling point following the prerequisite of the system. The performance through the implemented control algorithm is brought about in MATLAB 15b/Simulink platform. The performances of results are compared with already reported control strategies. Thus, simulated results comparison with existing work presents the competence of the implemented control strategy under dynamic conditions.

This brief proposes a new linear fractional transformation (LFT) modeling approach for uncertain linear parameter-varying (LPV) multibody systems with parameter-dependent equilibrium. Traditional multibody approaches, which consist of building the nonlinear model of the whole structure and linearizing it around equilibrium after a numerical trimming, do not allow to isolate parametric variations with the LFT form. Although additional techniques, such as polynomial fitting or symbolic linearization, can provide an LFT model, they may be time-consuming or miss worst case configurations. The proposed approach relies on the trimming and linearization of the equations at the substructure level, before assembly of the multibody structure, which allows to only perform operations that preserve the LFT form throughout the linearization process. Since the physical origin of the parameters is retained, the linearized LFT-LPV model of the structure exactly covers all the plants, in a single parametric model, without introducing conservatism or fitting errors. An application to the LFT-LPV modeling of a robotic arm is proposed; in its nominal configuration, the model obtained with the proposed approach matches the model provided by the software Simscape Multibody, but it is enhanced with parametric variations with the LFT form; a robust LPV synthesis is performed using MATLAB robust control toolbox to illustrate the capacity of the proposed approach for control design.

Automated vehicles require efficient and safe planning to maneuver in uncertain environments. Largely this uncertainty is caused by other traffic participants, e.g., surrounding vehicles. Future motion of surrounding vehicles is often difficult to predict. Whereas robust control approaches achieve safe, yet conservative motion planning for automated vehicles, Stochastic Model Predictive Control (SMPC) provides efficient planning in the presence of uncertainty. Probabilistic constraints are applied to ensure that the maximal risk remains below a predefined level. However, safety cannot be ensured as probabilistic constraints may be violated, which is not acceptable for automated vehicles. Here, we propose an efficient trajectory planning framework with safety guarantees for automated vehicles. SMPC is applied to obtain efficient vehicle trajectories for a finite horizon. Based on the first optimized SMPC input, a guaranteed safe backup trajectory is planned using reachable sets. This backup is used to overwrite the SMPC input if necessary for safety. Recursive feasibility of the safe SMPC algorithm is proved. Highway simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed method regarding performance and safety.

It is well known that activities in running water or wind and waves expose the Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASVs) to considerable challenges. Under these conditions, it is essential to develop a robust control system that can meet the requirements and ensure the safe and accurate execution of missions. In this context, this paper presents a new topology for controller design based on a combination of the Successive Loop Closure (SLC) method and optimal control. This topology enables the design of robust autopilots based on the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller. The controllers are tuned from the solution of the optimal control problem, which aims to minimize the effects of model uncertainties. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller, a numerical case study of a natural ASV with 3 Degree of Freedom (DoF) is investigated. The results show that the methodology enabled the tuning of a PID controller capable of dealing with different parametric uncertainties, demonstrating robustness and applicability for different prototype scenarios.

The control of a microgrid is quite challenging thus this work implements a robust and fast control technique based on circular limited cycle oscillator frequency locked loop with inner loop filter (CLO-FLL-WIF) for switching operation between an islanded and the grid-connected modes. This microgrid combing solar PV (Photovoltaic) generation, SyRG (Synchronous Reluctance Generator) for pico-hydro generation, and the battery, which works in both standalone and grid-connected modes while feeding local loads uninterruptedly. The output power conversion of a PV array is influenced by irradiation of solar PV array and has low efficiency, therefore, a MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) namely an INC (Incremental Conductance) method is used. In the implemented system, the interfaced power converter is gated in the grid-connected mode and islanded mode using same enhanced second order generalized integrator with a modified frequency locked loop (ESOGI-MFLL) control method. The comparative results validate that the response of ESOGI-MFLL in comparison to the existing control algorithm, is faster under load and generation perturbations. The implemented control techniques are used for fundamental extraction of load component of voltage and current for assessment of reference currents with their respective phases of synchronization while maintaining the required IEEE power quality standard-519. Simulated results of a microgrid for grid-tied PV-BES-SyRG are obtained in MATLAB/Simulink platform to demonstrate its performance.

In this article, the problem of H∞ codesign for nonlinear control systems with unmatched uncertainties and adjustable parameters is investigated. The main purpose is to solve the adjustable parameters and H∞ controller simultaneously so that better robust control performance can be achieved. By introducing a bounded function and defining a special cost function, the problem of solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs equation is transformed into an optimization problem with nonlinear inequality constraints. Based on the sum of squares technique, a novel policy iteration algorithm is proposed to solve the problem of the H∞ codesign. Moreover, one modified algorithm for optimizing the robust performance index is given. The convergence and the performance improvement of new iteration policy algorithms are proved. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

Navigation control of microrobots in vivo has great potential in precision medicine and has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The control performance of the existing methods is considerably affected by hysteresis nonlinearity. This article presents a robust control method that can overcome hysteresis influence in navigating a microrobot actuated by an electromagnetic coil system. A motion planner that combines the breadth-first search (BFS) method and genetic algorithm (GA) is used to plan a reliable and flexible trajectory for the microrobot navigation. To compensate for hysteresis nonlinearity existing in the system, the Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) model is introduced. A robust controller that integrates adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) and nonlinear disturbance observer is designed to guarantee the stability and accuracy of the microrobot in motion. Experiments have been performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The success of this research will advance the microrobot navigation for in vivo applications.

In robust control under state constraints the set of admissible inputs is usually considered as given, under the assumption that the actuators have been already designed. However, if the input set is too small any controller will fail in stabilizing the closed-loop system while satisfying all prescribed constraints for some initial states of interest, or vice versa the chosen actuators may be over-sized. To handle this issue, in this paper we address the problem of computing the smallest input constraint set such that the closed-loop system is stabilizable from a prescribed set of initial states while respecting all constraints. We focus our attention on linear systems with additive disturbances, and develop the algorithm based on recursive feasibility of robust model predictive control. We demonstrate the results using numerical examples, in which we consider different metrics for the input constraint set selection.

With the objective to eliminate the input current sensor in a totem-pole boost power factor corrector (TPFC) for its low-cost design, a novel discretized sampling-based robust control scheme is proposed in this work. The proposed control methodology proves to be beneficial due to its ease of implementation and its ability to support high frequency operation, while being able to eliminate one sensor, and thus enhancing reliability and cost-effectiveness. In addition to that, detailed closed loop stability analysis is carried out for the controller in discrete domain to ascertain brisk dynamic operation when subjected to sudden load fluctuations. To establish the robustness of the proposed control scheme, a detailed sensitivity analysis of the closed loop performance metrics with respect to undesired changes and inherent uncertainty in system parameters is presented in this paper. A comparison with the state-of-the-art (SOA) methods is provided, and conclusive results in terms of better dynamic performance are also established. To verify and elaborate on the specifics of the proposed scheme, a detailed simulation study is conducted, and the results show 25% reduction in response time as compared to SOA approaches. A 500W boost PFC prototype is developed and tested with the proposed control scheme to evaluate the steady state and dynamic performance.

Pointing tracking control of marching turret-barrel system is one of the important topics in exploration of intelligent ground combat platform. This paper focuses on an adaptive robust control scheme for pointing tracking of marching turret-barrel system driven by a motor and an electric cylinder. Three types of possibly fast time-varying but bounded uncertainty are considered: system modeling error, external disturbance and road excitation. The uncertainty bounds are not necessary to be known. First, the pointing tracking system is constructed as a coupled, nonlinear and uncertain dynamical system with two interconnected (horizontal and vertical) subsystems. Second, a tracking error e is defined as a gauge of control objective, and then the dynamical equation of the pointing tracking system is built in state-space form. Third, for uncertainty control, a comprehensive uncertainty bound α is derived to measure the most conservative influence of the uncertainty, and then an adaptive law is proposed to evaluate it in real time. Finally, for pointing tracking control, an adaptive robust control is proposed to render the pointing tracking system to be practically stable; thereout, the objective of pointing tracking is achieved. This work should be among the first ever endeavours to cast all the coupling, nonlinearity and bound-unknown uncertainty into the pointing tracking framework of marching turret-barrel system.

Due to the simultaneous existence of model uncertainties and external disturbances, designing automated ground vehicle path-following controllers is recognized as a challenging task. The $H_{∞}$ robust control methodology, as one of the accomplished strategies for controller robustification, has been commonly adopted by researchers to address the vehicle path-tracking problems. Nevertheless, despite its advantages, the $H_{∞}$ controller is only capable of limiting the total ``energy'' of the tracking errors. On the other hand, from a safety standpoint, constraining the ``peak'' of the tracking errors may carry an equal or more importance. To establish a guaranteed upper bound on the path-tracking errors, this paper proposes a novel methodology to synthesis the ground vehicle path-following controller in light of the energy-to-peak robust control theory. Additionally, to address the time-varying uncertainties presented in the tire dynamics, robust stabilization constraints based upon the small-gain theorem are also formulated into the overall controller design problem. Comparative study regarding the disturbance rejection performance between the proposed controller and the conventional $H_{∞}$ approach is conducted via CarSim-Simulink joint simulations. Furthermore, the robustness and disturbance attenuation ability of the energy-to-peak path-tracking controller is experimentally verified on a scaled car.

This paper proposes a novel Stackelberg game-oriented optimal control approach to address the bounded constraint-following control problem for uncertain mechanical systems. First, the uncertainties (possibly fast time-varying) in the system are assumed to be bounded with an unknown boundary which lies in a specified fuzzy evidence number. In practical engineering, bounded system performance is always demanded, such as the inequality constraint. A diffeomorphism transformation approach is proposed to transform the constrained system into a restructured one satisfying the bounded constraint. Second, we propose an adaptive robust control oriented by the constraint-following control to render the restructured system to follow the specified constraints accurately with deterministic performance (guaranteeing uniform boundedness and uniform ultimate boundedness). The self-adjusting adaptive law (leakage-type) can compensate for the uncertainties and avoid overcompensation. Third, a Stackelberg game-oriented optimization approach is proposed to obtain the optimal control parameters based on the fuzzy evidence theory. In the optimization approach, the two control parameters, are considered as two players with respective cost functions related to system performance and control cost. Furthermore, the optimization problem is solved by obtaining the Stackelberg strategy, which is proved to exist in analytic form. Ultimately, the permanent magnet synchronous linear motor system simulation is presented to show the design process and the excellent performance of the proposed optimal control scheme.

This article is dealt with the problem of trajectory tracking with prescribed performance for a family of underactuated surface vessels (USVs) under model uncertainties and disturbances. The prescribed performance means that the USV tracks a given trajectory with the arbitrarily predefined speed of response and accuracy. The existing prescribed performance control (PPC) solutions and the traditional robust control approaches for USVs may have the singularity issue or cause a discontinuous control signal. Thereby, a new-type adaptive PPC strategy is put forward in this article. The adaptive technique is devoted to tackling model imperfections as usual, whereas the constraint-handling technique is adopted in a novel way. Herein, we first construct an auxiliary variable instead of using the approach angle or azimuth angle. Then, we impose constraints on the position error, not the tracking error, and the auxiliary variable, simultaneously. In this way, the predefined performance is achieved by moreover a singularity-free continuous control action. These theoretical findings are illustrated via a comparative simulation study.

Affine nonlinear systems are special kinds of non-linear systems, and they can represent many practical systems. Dealing with affine nonlinear system based on T-S fuzzy model has drawn much attention in literature recently. In this paper, a robust control method is proposed for affine nonlinear system with disturbance based on T-S fuzzy model. First, an optimization T-S fuzzy model is constructed focusing on optimizing the parameters of the weight functions by using differential evolution algorithm (DEA). Second, in order to reconstruct the disturbance, an interval observer is designed for the affine nonlinear system, and then a novelty disturbance reconstruction method based on the interval observer is developed. The disturbance reconstruction value can asymptotically approach the actual disturbance value, and furthermore, it decouples the control input. Third, by taking the optimization T-S fuzzy model as design model and by introducing the reconstruction of disturbance into controller, a feedback robust controller with disturbance compensation is designed to stabilize the affine nonlinear system. Finally, a simulation example of the crane model is given and some comparisons are provided to verify the effectiveness and show the advantages of the proposed method.

This article provides a solution to tube-based output feedback robust model predictive control (RMPC) for discrete-time linear parameter varying (LPV) systems with bounded disturbances and noises. The proposed approach synthesizes an offline optimization problem to design a look-up table and an online tube-based output feedback RMPC with tightened constraints and scaled terminal constraint sets. In the offline optimization problem, a sequence of nested robust positively invariant (RPI) sets and robust control invariant (RCI) sets, respectively, for estimation errors and control errors is optimized and stored in the look-up table. In the online optimization problem, real-time control parameters are searched based on the bounds of time-varying estimation error sets. Considering the characteristics of the uncertain scheduling parameter in LPV systems, the online tube-based output feedback RMPC scheme adopts one-step nominal system prediction with scaled terminal constraint sets. The formulated simple and efficient online optimization problem with fewer decision variables and constraints has a lower online computational burden. Recursive feasibility of the optimization problem and robust stability of the controlled LPV system are guaranteed by ensuring that the nominal system converges to the terminal constraint set, and uncertain state trajectories are constrained within robust tubes with the center of the nominal system. A numerical example is given to verify the approach.

This paper presents a robust path tracking control method by utilizing the ideology of constraint-following approach for uncertain underactuated autonomous vehicles. The uncertainties are bounded with an unknown boundary. They do not all fall within the range space of the input matrix. Based on kinematic relations between the desired path and vehicle, the path tracking task is transformed into an equality constraint of the vehicle lateral dynamics states. The control goal is to make the underactuated vehicle follow the constraint, thus realizing the desired tracking performance. The constraint-following robust control (CFRC) is designed in two steps. First, a servo control design for the nominal system is devised without considering uncertainty and initial constraint deviation. Second, the uncertainty is meticulously decomposed into matched and mismatched portions based on the geometric structural characteristics of the constraint dynamics system. As a result, since the mismatched uncertainty is orthogonal to the constraint-following geometric space, it ``disappears'' in the stability analysis. The matched uncertainty is estimated by a self-adjusting leakage type adaptive law. On this basis, a robust control is designed based on the estimated matched uncertainty. Through Lyapunov minimax analysis, the proposed control method guarantees the approximate constraint-following performance. Finally, the TruckSim-Simulink co-simulations and real vehicle experiments are presented. The results show that the proposed control can robustly realize excellent tracking performance in the presence of time-vary uncertainties.

As one of the core components of high-end manufacturing equipment, linear motor (LM) plays an important role in high efficiency and high quality production of the equipment. In this paper, a high-precision robust control method with periodic dynamic compensation is proposed for the most common repetitive trajectory tracking task in the manufacturing industry. To overcome the influence of unknown periodic dynamics on the control accuracy, a B-spline wavelet neural network (BSWNN) observer is designed to estimate the uncertainties. Moreover, the control framework in the form of robust control is employed to ensure the stability of the closed-loop system under other unknown aperiodic disturbance. Finally, the high-precision control for LM-driven stage in high-speed environment is realized, and the comparative experiments show that the control accuracy of the proposed method is significantly improved at least 28.9% compared with the other three existing control methods.

This study has the aim of introducing a new type of trajectory tracking robust controllers for a class of rehabilitation robotic system considering the articulations restrictions. The robotic device consists of a suspended biped configuration. The suggested robust control considers the application of state depending gains which provide finite-time convergence for the tracking deviation. The state restrictions are fulfilled by the implementation of controller gains estimated by a class of the controlled tangent barrier Lyapunov function. Stability analysis for the tracking error yields the explicit design of the state dependent gains. The rate of convergence for the controller design is enhanced using a matrix inequality convex optimization method. Based on the forward complete characteristic of the suggested rehabilitation device, it is allowed using a finite-time convergent super-twisting-based differentiator to concrete an output feedback realization of the proposed controller. A computerized model of the tendered rehabilitation robot provides a reliable testing platform to the suggested roust controller. Numerical evaluations appear to serve as an indirect confirmation for the tracking error convergence, satisfying the articulation restrictions, and the effect of the gain optimization design. For comparison purposes, the regular state feedback control design is considered as benchmark. The faster convergence of the mean square estimation of the tracking error justifies the design of the proposed control design as well as the state feedback structure justifies the origin is a fixed-time stable equilibrium point for the space of tracking error at the same time that state space restrictions remain satisfied. The experimental evaluations of the proposed controller justifies the barrier controller which, in spite of the modeling uncertainties and the implementation issues, tracked the reference trajectories.

The output-based event-triggered cooperative output regulation problem is addressed for constrained linear heterogeneous multiagent system in this article. In light of the robust control theory, H∞ leader-following consensus with respect to exogenous signals, including both disturbance to be rejected and reference state of leader to be tracked, is guaranteed. Meanwhile, the system performance alleviates degradation through a model recovery anti-windup technique while encountering input saturation. Furthermore, the follower's self-state observer, the leader-state observer, and the anti-windup auxiliary system are integrated into a comprehensive system, and a unified event-triggering mechanism of full states is addressed. A fixed lower bound of sampled interval is adopted such that the frequency of data transmission gets reduced and no Zeno-behavior happens. Both the input and output of the follower's controller and anti-windup compensator hold constant, respectively, during the event-triggered intervals such that the resulting output-based event-triggered controller can be directly implemented in a digital platform. Finally, a simulation example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness.

There is uncertainty in the system, and we consider that uncertainty is (possibly fast) time varying, but with definite bound. Fuzzy set theory is used to describe the inexact boundary and then the problem of robust control of uncertain dynamical systems is studied. Based on two adjustable design parameters, a robust control method for general mechanical systems is proposed. The control is deterministic, not the conventional IF-THEN rule based. By using the Lyapunov minimax approach, it is proved that the proposed control can guarantee system performance to be uniformly bounded and uniformly ultimately bounded. In order to find the optimal solution in the prescribed range, a two-player cooperative game is used. To reduce costs while ensuring control performance, two performance indices are developed, each of which is controlled by an adjustable parameter (i.e., player). Both necessary and sufficient conditions for Pareto-optimality are established. Using these conditions, the Pareto-optimal solution can be obtained. The effectiveness of the control design is demonstrated by the simulation of the two-body pendulum.

The effects of model parameter uncertainty on traffic flow control problems have recently drawn research attention. While the uncertainty in fundamental diagram related parameters has been investigated in the past, few articles have focused on network parameters uncertainty, including turning ratio uncertainty. To fill this gap, this article proposes a robust control model to deal with the uncertainties in the turning ratio by using distributionally robust chance constraints. The model allows one to compute the optimal control action that maximizes some objective, under all possible distributions of network parameters. We then apply this robust control framework to both a freeway network and an urban network, and evaluate the impact of uncertainty on optimal control inputs, over the test networks. The case studies show that compared to non-robust control, the proposed robust model can reduce congestion brought by the uncertainties and improve the overall throughput., Accepted for publication on IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems

The independent metering system decouples the meter-in and meter-out flows of the chamber, giving extra control flexibility and can reducing energy consumption while keeping motion control accuracy. The control performance of the independent metering system is significantly determined by the valve characteristics. Valve nonlinearities, such as deadband, nonlinear flow gain, and leakage, may restrict the control accuracy. To address the issue and improve system control precision, the nonlinearities of the valve need to be further modeled. In this study, a nonlinear valve flow model is proposed to accurately depict the relationships between the flow rate, pressure drop, and input voltage. The valve deadband is compensated by the static inverse function, while a certain polynomial projection function is used to mimic the nonlinear flow curve outside the deadband. To deal with uncertainties and nonlinearities in the independent metering system, an adaptive robust control approach is synthesized. The least squares estimation law is adopted to online adapt the valve parameter and other system parameters. Comparative experiments were carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results show that the valve flow nonlinearities are further captured by the proposed model, and the independent metering system performed a higher-level control precision.

This article proposes a novel gain-scheduling control method to improve vehicle lateral stability based on a variable-parameter-dependent approach. A time-varying velocity-dependent model to describe the vehicle lateral dynamic characteristics is constructed under cornering stiffness uncertainties and controller saturation. A novel Lyapunov function with variable-parameter-dependent Lyapunov matrix is established to develop the conditions. Using the proposed Lyapunov function, a general condition of the variable-parameter-dependent saturated robust yaw moment controller is provided in terms of time-varying parameter-dependent matrix inequalities. In order to obtain a tractable solution, a condition is further developed with finite linear matrix inequalities. Moreover, an optimal distribution method is adopted to generate the desired yaw moment based on torque allocation. These torques are computed by optimizing the distribution errors and tire workloads. Simulations results under both J-turn and double-lane changing scenarios are used to illustrate the merits of the proposed method. The control synthesis approach is also applicable to other applications involving time-varying parameters.

A pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) based on a metal hydride (MH) is considered for a compact compliant actuator. It is suitable for board applications of human robot interaction (HRI). To address the problem of HRI representing by varying environment, a compliant control is introduced. In fact, the bottlenecks of improving the performance in the compliant control of the PAM actuator are: a) an inherent non-linear dynamics of a PAM, b) the parametric and non-linear uncertainties, influenced by varying environment, and c) an additional high dimension introduced by an MH employed as a driving force for the PAM. We propose a learning-based adaptive robust control (LARC) framework to tackle these challenges. A Bayesian learning technique deals with the parameter adaptation for the adaptive control. The effectiveness of the LARC has been examined in extensive experiments of tracking control.

A multivariable robust control design for aircraft engines is proposed. The engine is modeled as a fuzzy dynamic system (FDS), which is not the same as Takagi-Sugeno inference system, based on a series of state vector models in the flight envelope. The possible value of uncertainty is prescribed to be within fuzzy sets. The uncertainty is divided into the matched and the mismatched portions. While the matched uncertainty lies within the range space of the input matrix, the mismatched uncertainty falls outside, which poses a significant challenge for control design. A robust control, which is deterministic and is not IF-THEN fuzzy rule based, is designed. The control design parameter needs to be feasible, i.e., within a prescribed range. Some prescribed deterministic performances of the system are guaranteed under the control, regardless of the uncertainty. By taking the control cost and the performance threshold into consideration, which is under the influence of both matched and mismatched uncertainty, the optimal choice of the control parameter is explored. As a result, this control design delicately blends optimality with mismatched uncertainty. This design is applied to a turbofan engine. HIL (hardware-in-the-loop) laboratory testing in the flight envelope demonstrates the superiority of the control design.

We propose a control approach for fully actuated mechanical systems using interval arithmetic, which guarantees global uniform ultimate boundedness of the tracking error and robust performance despite model uncertainties and input disturbances. Existing robust control methods often require computationally expensive or empirical estimations of bounds of state-dependent, nonlinear perturbations, arising from model mismatches. Our robust feedback control approach is different and removes these difficulties by using interval arithmetic to determine online the worst case perturbation acting on the error dynamics. We present two interval-arithmetic-based robust controllers by robustifying inverse-dynamics and passivity-based nominal control schemes. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated on a real robot manipulator with uncertain dynamics.

In this article, we investigate the problem of practical output regulation, i.e., to design a controller that brings the system output in the vicinity of a desired target value while keeping the other variables bounded. We consider uncertain systems that are possibly nonlinear and the uncertainty of their linear parts is modeled element wise through a parametric family of matrix boxes. An optimization-based design procedure is proposed that delivers a continuous-time control and estimates the maximal regulation error. We also analyze an event-triggered emulation of this controller, which can be implemented on a digital platform, along with an explicit estimate of the regulation error.

This article investigates the event-triggered output consensus problem for a class of unknown heterogeneous discrete-time linear multiagent systems in the presence of unmodeled dynamics. The agents have individual nominal dynamics with unknown parameters, and the unmodeled dynamics are in the form of multiplicative perturbations. A novel design framework is developed based on an event-triggered internal reference model and a distributed model reference adaptive controller. To deal with the heterogeneity of the multiagent system, the event-triggered internal reference model is designed to generate a virtual reference signal for each agent with a dynamic event-triggering mechanism being adopted to reduce the communication burden between neighboring agents. To handle the unknown parameters and unmodeled dynamics, the robust model reference adaptive controller is then designed to follow the generated virtual reference signal. It is shown that if the unmodeled dynamics satisfy certain conditions, then the boundedness of all the signals and variables in the closed-loop system and convergence of consensus errors to a residual set are guaranteed. Moreover, the consensus errors will converge to zero asymptotically in the absence of unmodeled dynamics. Compared with existing related works, the proposed framework is able to deal with the agents with individual unknown nominal dynamics and unmodeled dynamics. Moreover, the proposed framework is fully distributed in the sense that no knowledge of any global information is needed. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is validated by examples.

The required suitably soft-contact interaction in certain surgical device applications brings great challenges on the force and position control because the soft-contact environment is nonlinear, viscoelastic, and inhomogeneous. In this paper, a novel adaptive robust control approach, namely adaptive integral terminal sliding-mode-based impedance control (AITSMIC), is formulated to simultaneously regulate and control the position and force for a piezo-actuated ear surgical device with soft interaction. Firstly, the target impedance's steady-state performance is discussed by utilizing the nonlinear Hunt-Crossley model. To achieve the desired impedance, an integral terminal sliding manifold based on the auxiliary variable containing the impedance error is proposed to improve tracking performance and obtain the required finite-time convergence. Furthermore, an adaptive law is designed to get rid of system nonlinearities, uncertainties and disturbances, and to retain high robustness. The stability of the proposed control system is proven via the Lyapunov theory. Significantly, implementing the AITSMIC is straightforward, where only essentially one uniform controller is applied. Finally, several experiments are conducted to evaluate the effects of associated impedance parameters, verify the force tracking performance and validate the suitably practical application of AITSMIC on the procedure of ear surgery with soft interaction. The results show that excellent tracking performance and successful operation are achieved by the proposed controller.

In this paper, afull-car prototype of the recently proposed mechatronic suspension, Series Active Variable Geometry Suspension (SAVGS), is developed for on-road driving experimental proof of concept, aiming to be adopted by suspension OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as an alternative solution to fully active suspensions. Particularly, mechanical modifications are performed to both corners of the front double-wishbone suspensionof a production car, with active single-links attached to the upper-ends of the spring-damper units, while both corners of the rear suspension remain inthe original (passive) configurations.The mechanical modifications involve innovatively designed parts to enable the desired suspension performance improvements, while maintaining ride harshness at conventional levels.Areal-time embedded system is further developed to primarily implement:1) power supply, data acquisition and measurementsof the vehicle dynamics related variables, and 2) robust control application for the ride comfort and road holding enhancement, which is based on a derived linearized model of the full-car dynamics and a newly synthesizedH-infinity control scheme. Results obtained from on-road driving experiments are inessential agreement with numerical simulation results also produced. Overall, the full-car prototypeof SAVGS demonstrates promising suspension performance,with anaverage 3 dB attenuation (or equivalently 30% reduction) of the chassis vertical acceleration at aroundthe human-sensitive frequencies (2-5Hz),as compared to the original vehicle with the passive suspension system. More importantly, the prototype also indicatesthe practicality of the solution, as the SAVGS retrofit to a real car is achieved by simple mechanical modifications, compact actuator packaging, smallmass increment(21.5kg increase with respect to the original vehicle), limited power usage (an average value of 134W in DC batteries with a Class D random road) and acceptable economic cost.

International audience; This work addresses the problem of robust output feedback model predictive control for discrete-time, constrained, linear parameter-varying systems subject to (bounded) state and measurement disturbances. The vector of scheduling parameters is assumed to be an unmeasurable signal taking values in a given compact set. The proposed controller incorporates an interval observer, that uses the available measurement to update the setmembership estimation of the states, and an interval predictor, used in the prediction step of the MPC algorithm. The resulting MPC scheme offers guarantees on recursive feasibility, constraint satisfaction, and input-to-state stability in the terminal set. Furthermore, this novel algorithm shows low computation complexity and ease of implementation (similar to conventional MPC schemes).

Permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is widely used in electric vehicles due to its high power density. New requirements are constantly proposed with the development of PMSM, one of which is torque ripple. Current harmonic injection is a common method to minimize torque ripple. Designing effective controller to realize current harmonic injection is the key technology. In this paper, the transient voltage-current coupling equation considering magnetic saturation is derived by introducing incremental inductance. After appropriately simplifying, it is shown in form of the harmonic state space (HSS) equation. Considering that PMSM parameters varies with current due to magnetic saturation, robust controller is adopted to ensure stability. In order to eliminate the influence of motor speed change on control stability, the HSS is transformed into a spatial form. Then the speed adaptive robust (SAR) controller is designed. At last, the SAR controller is used in simulation and test bench experiment to verify dynamic response and stability. Compared with traditional PI and PR controller, the SAR controller can ensure good dynamic response, steady-state error and robust stability when speed and PMSM parameters vary. Moreover, SAR controller can well resist the harmonic coupling effect and system lag.

Uncertainty is a major concern in vehicle path tracking control design. The coefficients of the uncertainty bound are unknown. They are assumed to lie within prescribed fuzzy sets. First, based on the path tracking kinematic model, this paper innovatively formulates the vehicle path tracking task as a constraint-following problem. Second, we put forward a deterministic adaptive robust control law with a tunable parameter to ensure the uniform boundedness and ultimate uniform boundedness of the closed-loop system. Third, an optimal scheme for the tunable parameter is proposed based on the fuzzy uncertainty. The resulting optimal robust control (ORC) minimizes a comprehensive fuzzy performance index that involves the fuzzy system performance and the control cost. The results of the CarSim-Simulink co-simulation and the Hardware-in-loop (HIL) experiment together show that the proposed optimal robust control exhibits a superior path tracking performance.

This paper develops a novel decentralized controller for multi-area secondary load frequency control (LFC) of power systems. The proposed robust-adaptive approach estimates the external disturbance input and uncertainties, which are assumed to be matched with the control input. In this regard, a disturbance-observer state-feedback controller is designed. To offer a systematic approach, controller design conditions are derived in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) constraints. Thereby, for any given representation of the LFC area, the controller gains can be straightforwardly obtained by using numerical solvers. Moreover, in order to enhance the steady-state performance, the controller is modified through the heuristic genetic algorithm (GA). The controller design procedure is wholly offline and can be simply implemented. The developed decentralized approach does not need the information of the other areas, which reduces the cost and the number of measuring units. It is also robust against the power fluctuations of the load and renewable energy sources. To show the superiorities of the developed controller, four scenarios are considered. These scenarios comprise the aggregation of the photovoltaic, wind turbines, and electric vehicle (EV) to the power system. OPAL-RT experiments are given to verify the transient and steady-state performance and robustness of the proposed controller.

This article deals with the distributed H∞ robust control problem for linear multiagent systems perturbed by external disturbances and norm-bounded uncertain parameters over the Markovian randomly switching communication topologies. To tackle this problem, the distributed observer-based controller is proposed, which requires the relative information between neighbors and the absolute information of a subset of the nodes, and thus is intrinsically distributed. It is of great interest to see that the distributed H∞ robust control problem governed by such a controller can be converted to the stabilization with H∞ disturbance attenuation problems of some decoupled linear systems, whose dimensions equal those of a single node. Then, the H∞ stochastic robust performance region is defined to indicate the robustness of this controller against the variation of communication topologies. It is theoretically shown that the distributed observer-based controller yields bounded and connected robust performance region. Finally, the theoretical results are verified by conducting numerical simulations and experiments.

The control problem of active suspension systems (ASSs) with uncertainties is considered by formulating control goals as a series of equality constraints (i.e., soft constraints) and inequality constraints (i.e., hard constraints). Uncertainties are (possibly fast) time-varying, bounded and include large mismatched portions. However, bounds are unknown. The objective is to design an adaptive robust control driving the system to converge to soft constraints provided by sky-hook model and simultaneously ensuring the system to meet hard constraints at every instant. The adaptive robust control design is implemented in four steps. First, we investigate a transformation technique for incorporating hard constraints into soft constraints and the model. Second, a nominal control is presented without considering uncertainty. Third, an orthogonal decomposition technique is proposed for dividing uncertainty into matched and mismatched portions, which creatively allocates the mismatched portion for later control design. Fourth, a continuous adaptive law is constructed to emulate a constant design parameter vector associated with uncertainty bounds. It is proved that the proposed control guarantees uniform boundedness and uniform ultimate boundedness of ASSs in the presence of uncertainties and hard constrains. Furthermore, experimental and simulation results on 2-DOF ASS are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control.

While designing control for a class of underactuated mechanical systems (UMSs), the uncertainty and the prescribed nonholonomic tracking trajectories should be taken into consideration. Uncertainty considered in this article is time varying and bounded, and the bound of uncertainty is described using the fuzzy set theory, namely, fuzzy UMSs. An analytical dynamics-based view is taken in which the prescribed tracking trajectories are viewed as servo constraints which can be linear, nonlinear, holonomic, and nonholonomic. Using this view, a novel closed form solution of adaptive robust control is found with leakage type adaptive law to guarantee deterministic system performance, including uniform boundedness and uniform ultimate boundedness. In order to find the optimal dual gain parameters of the designed control, a two-player cooperative game is proposed for which the Pareto optimality can always be guaranteed. The effectiveness of the proposed control is shown through numerical simulation of a two-wheeled inverted pendulum vehicle.

This paper presents the design, implementation, and validation of a novel robust control strategy based on variables transformation, i.e., transforming variables to obtain the triangular flat canonical normal form (TCNF) for nonlinear dynamic systems satisfying the flatness geometric property. A differential flatness, integrated with a geometrical transformation-based method, was developed to control an exoskeleton robot named Smart Robotic Exoskeleton (SREx). The SREx was designed to provide upper limb rehabilitation therapy to the stroke survivors. The proposed flatness control technique ensures continuous enhanced trajectory tracking and the system's high robustness during following a trajectory representing rehabilitation exercises. Furthermore, utilizing the Lyapunov theory, all signals were shown to be bounded in the closed-loop form. Experiments and comparative studies were carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. Controlled experiments were further conducted using healthy subjects, maneuvering the SERx to provide rehabilitation exercise and to validate the control scheme in real-time.

In a typical wireless power transfer (WPT) system, the load, the mutual inductance and the required tuning frequency can vary in a particular range. Variation of each parameter can substantially impact the dynamic characteristics of the system. Thus, they can be considered as the sources of uncertainty in the system. To address this issue, robust control methods such as -synthesis are developed to deal with possible system uncertainties. In this paper, first, the generic dynamic analysis of the series-series WPT compensation network for two modes of operation, i.e. Constant Output Voltage (COV) mode and Constant Output Current (COC) mode, in the presence of three aforementioned uncertainty sources is carried out. Subsequently, the frequency detuning as a function of the compensation capacitor variation is explored and broadened as a technique to obtain the optimized compensation capacitor value that can lead to a plant with minimized dynamic deviations from its nominal system in the operating range between COC and COV modes. As such, this approach offers a design procedure for a least conservative robust controller which can significantly improve the system performance. The optimized structure and the corresponding designed -synthesis controller are comprehensively elaborated.

International audience; In this paper a robust nonlinear Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) is proposed for disturbed linear systems, i.e., linear systems with parameter uncertainties, and external time-dependent perturbations or nonlinear unmodeled dynamics matched with the control input. The proposed nonlinear control law is composed of two nonlinear adaptive gains. Such adaptive gains allow the control to counteract the effects of some perturbations and nonlinear unmodeled dynamics ensuring asymptotic convergence of the tracking error to zero, and the boundedness of the adaptive gains. The nonlinear controller synthesis is given by a constructive method based on the solution of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). Besides, the simulation results show that, due to the nonlinearities, the rate of convergence of the proposed algorithm is faster than the provided by a classic MRAC.

Inherent nonlinearities and uncertainties are inseparable parts of the real-life engineering systems, which make theoretical analyzes and control system designs more challenging. Usually, most of the physical parts in control systems such as controllers and actuators are subjected to saturation. On the other hand, uncertainties are ubiquitous in the physical systems, which demand some necessities in the design of the control system. Additionally, unreliability in communication networks is another practical constraint in multiagent systems, which is required to be considered. In this article, based on the mentioned issues, a distributed robust algorithm is proposed for the semiglobal stabilization of the voltage and frequency of isolated (islanded) ac microgrids considering parameters uncertainties, static nonlinearity of actuators, and unreliability in the communication network. In this regard, by employing an adaptive low-gain feedback protocol, the robust performance of the closed-loop system is guaranteed. Finally, to evaluate the proposed control strategy’s performance, digital time-domain simulations are carried out on a test microgrid system in MATLAB/Simulink environment, and the results are compared with several previously reported methods. Simulation results and comparison with previous works reveal the proposed method’s effectiveness and accuracy in regulating the microgrid voltage/frequency and providing accurate proportional active power sharing.

This article investigates the adaptive robust spatial vibration control for a flexible Timoshenko manipulator subject to input dead-zone nonlinearity characteristic. The ``disturbance-like'' terms and dead-zone nonlinearity are first incorporated into the context of control design, and the new boundary robust adaptive control laws are constructed to reduce the shear deformation and elastic oscillation, ensure the expected angle orientation, handle the input dead-zone, and estimate the upper bound of compound disturbances. The convergence of states and the stability of the system are analyzed and proven without simplifying the infinite dimensional dynamics. In the end, the effectiveness of the presented scheme is demonstrated by the result of simulation research.

This article investigates the leader-following output consensus problem of heterogeneous linear multiagent systems, where the nonidentical followers are subject to norm bounded parameter uncertainties. Two novel distributed event-triggered consensus strategies based on state feedback and output feedback, respectively, are proposed to solve the leader-following output consensus problem. A dynamic event-triggering mechanism which involves internal state variables is proposed to determine the next triggering instant. It should be noted that the controllers can be designed without the knowledge of some global graph information, such as the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix associated with the corresponding communication graph and the number of agents. In addition, the interevent time can be prolonged and the Zeno behavior can be excluded with the proposed dynamic triggering mechanism. Finally, an example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.

For an individual affected by a neuromuscular condition (NC), functional electrical stimulation (FES)-induced cycling provides a means of functional restoration and therapeutic exercise. Although FES-cycling has been shown to have numerous benefits, there are challenges to implementing closed-loop FES control for coordinated motion. For example, there exists a potentially destabilizing input delay between the application (or removal) of stimulation and the resulting muscle force. Moreover, switching between multiple actuators (such as FES or motor control) can also be destabilizing. This brief develops delay-dependent switching conditions and a robust control method to account for an unknown time-varying input delay of a switched system. A Lyapunov-like analysis is performed to yield semiglobal exponential cadence tracking to an ultimate bound. Experiments were performed on six able-bodied participants and four participants with NCs to validate the developed controller. The proposed controller resulted in an average cadence error of 0.01 ± 2.00 revolutions per minute (RPM) for the able-bodied participants and 0.01 ± 2.72 RPM for participants with NCs.