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Summary: This article presents a nonlinear closed‐loop active flow control (AFC) method, which achieves asymptotic regulation of a fluid flow velocity field in the presence of actuator uncertainty and sensor measurement limitations. To achieve the result, a reduced‐order model of the flow dynamics is derived, which utilizes proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) to express the Navier‐Stokes equations as a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The reduced‐order model formally incorporates the actuation effects of synthetic jet actuators (SJA). Challenges inherent in the resulting POD‐based reduced‐order model include (1) the states are not directly measurable, (2) the measurement equation is in a nonstandard mathematical form, and (3) the SJA model contains parametric uncertainty. To address these challenges, a sliding mode observer (SMO) is designed to estimate the unmeasurable states in the reduced‐order model of the actuated flow field dynamics. A salient feature of the proposed SMO is that it formally compensates for the parametric uncertainty inherent in the SJA model. The SMO is rigorously proven to achieve local finite‐time estimation of the unmeasurable state in the presence of the parametric uncertainty in the SJA. The state estimates are then utilized in a nonlinear control law, which regulates the flow field velocity to a desired state. A Lyapunov‐based stability analysis is provided to prove local asymptotic regulation of the flow field velocity. To illustrate the performance of the proposed estimation and AFC method, comparative numerical simulation results are provided, which demonstrate the improved performance that is achieved by incorporating the uncertainty compensator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Novel sliding mode observer (SMO) and robust nonlinear control methods are presented, which are shown to achieve finite‐time state estimation and asymptotic regulation of a fluid flow system. To facilitate the design and analysis of the closed‐loop active flow control (AFC) system, proper orthogonal decomposition–based model order reduction is utilized to express the Navier‐Stokes partial differential equations as a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The resulting reduced‐order model contains a measurement equation that is in a nonstandard mathematical form. This challenge is mitigated through the detailed design and analysis of an SMO. The observer is shown to achieve finite‐time estimation of the unmeasurable states of the reduced‐order model using direct sensor measurements of the flow field velocity. The estimated states are utilized as feedback measurements in a closed‐loop AFC system. To address the practical challenge of actuator bandwidth limitations, the control law is designed to be continuous. A rigorous Lyapunov‐based stability analysis is presented to prove that the closed‐loop flow estimation and control method achieves asymptotic regulation of a fluid flow field to a prescribed state. Numerical simulation results are also provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed closed‐loop AFC system, comparing 2 different designs for the SMO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]