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Nonlinear control of turbofan engines in the flight envelope has attracted much attention in consideration of the inherent nonlinearity of the engine dynamics. Most nonlinear control design techniques rely on the correction theory of reference model parameter to extend the typical flight operations from ground operation. However, dynamic uncertainties in flight envelope lead to the deviation of operating state, and it is negative to control performance. This article is to develop online correction neural network–based speed control approaches for the turbofan engine with dynamic uncertainty in the flight envelope. Two improved online correction nonlinear ways combined with nonlinear autoregressive moving average (NARMA) are proposed, such as gradient search nonlinear autoregressive moving average with feedback linearization (NARMA-L2) control and iterative learning NARMA-L2 control. The contribution of this article is to provide better control quality of fast regulation and less steady errors of engine speed by the proposed methodology in comparison to the conventional NARMA-L2 control. Some important results are reached on both turbofan engine controller design and dynamic uncertainty tolerance at the typical flight operations, and the numerical examples demonstrate the superiority of the proposed control in the flight envelope.

This work addresses the lateral stabilisation problem of four-wheels ground vehicles. The objective is to estimate the largest state-space region such that the closed-loop vehicle lateral stability...

This paper addresses the design of an adaptive sliding mode controller via geometric approach for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), suffering from inertial parameter uncertainty and distur...

This paper presents the Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy control design for nonlinear stabilization and tracking control of a ball on plate system. To deal with the plant nonlinearity and the fuzzy convergence issue, we formulate the parallel distributed compensator (PDC) TS fuzzy model to characterize the global behaviour of the nonlinear system and synthesize a feasible control framework using a velocity compensation scheme. The nonlinear dynamics of the ball on plate system is obtained using the Euler-Lagrangian energy based approach. To identify the moving objects in the video stream, a background subtraction algorithm using thresholding technique is formulated. Moreover, the stability analysis of the TS fuzzy control is reduced to linear matrix inequality (LMI) problem and solved using the Lyapunov direct method. The potential benefits of the proposed control structure for real time test cases are experimentally assessed using hardware in loop (HIL) testing on a ball on plate system. Experimental results substantiate that the TS fuzzy scheme can significantly improve not only the tracking performance but also the robustness of the closed loop system.

We study the feedback stabilisation problem for input-affine polynomial systems subject to polytopic input constraints. First, we characterise a subset of the state-space, which we refer to as the ...

An adaptive robust control law is proposed for the course tracking problem of ships in this paper incorporating a Nussbaum function and an auxiliary dynamic system into the adaptive dynamic surface control (DSC) technique. The ship steering dynamics is described by the Norrbin nonlinear model with completely unknown control coefficient, parameter uncertainties, and unknown external disturbances and input saturation caused by the rudder constraint. The Nussbaum function is adopted to deal with completely unknown control coefficient and avoid the controller singularity problem. An auxiliary dynamic system is introduced to handle the effect of input saturation. The DSC technique makes the control law be simple to compute and easy to implement in engineering practice. It is proved that the proposed course tracking control law of ships makes the course tracking error be arbitrarily small by an appropriate choice of the design parameters and guarantees the uniform ultimate boundedness of all signals in the closed-loop ship course control system. Finally, simulation results on two ships and simulation comparison with an existing adaptive neural control scheme demonstrate the effectiveness and the superiority of the proposed control scheme.

Dynamics of a two degree-of-freedom suspension mechanism is incorporated into nonlinear control design to facilitate its potential use as a rehabilitation device to aid people with lower-limb injuries. The proposed mechanism is a variation of the standard four-bar linkage with an extra link and two springs. The system dynamic model is first extracted based on the Lagrange’s equations in conservative form. The performance deviations due to the link inertia is demonstrated in open-loop numerical simulations under an impulsive force scenario. Finally, the dynamic model of the suspension mechanism is incorporated into feedback control design based on nonlinear, sliding mode control strategy that can add robustness against modeling uncertainties and external disturbances. The tracking performance of the proposed nonlinear controller is validated in closed-loop numerical simulations to demonstrate possible performance improvements under feedback control.

Inherently, piezoelectric actuator is one of the devices equipped with the micrometer positioning capability and characterized by small size, fast response, high stiffness, and large blocking force. These advantages give piezoelectric actuator the possibility of being high-accuracy industrial machineries. However, factors of nonlinear hysteresis, modeling uncertainties, and environmental disturbances result in unacceptable positioning errors and greatly increase the control difficulties. In this paper, a hybrid nonlinear robust control design that integrates a feedback linearization control method and a robust compensator is proposed. It aims to eliminate above-mentioned impacts and tackle the micrometer (μm) positioning design of piezoelectric actuators. The feedback linearization controller is developed for converging of positioning errors exponentially. The robust compensator is used to mitigate the total impact of hysteresis, modeling uncertainties and environmental disturbances and carry out the fine tuning of positioning errors to zero. Simulation results and practical tests reveal that the controlled piezoelectric actuator reaches 1 μm positioning accuracy, and the proposed robust control law delivers promising positioning performance under impacts of hysteresis, modeling uncertainties and environmental disturbances.

International audience; In this paper, continuous and discontinuous integral controllers for MIMO systems are designed for a large class of nonlinear systems, which are (partially) feedback linearizable. These controllers of arbitrary positive or negative degree of homogeneity are derived by combining a Lyapunov function obtained from the Implicit Lyapunov Function (ILF) method with some extra explicit terms. Discontinuous integral controllers are able to stabilize an equilibrium or track a time-varying signal in finite time, while rejecting vanishing uncertainties and non-vanishing Lipschitz matching perturbations. Continuous integral controllers achieve asymptotic stabilization despite non-vanishing constant perturbations in finite-time, exponentially or nearly fixed-time for negative, zero or positive homogeneity degree, respectively. The design method and the properties of the different classes of integral controllers are illustrated by means of a simulation example.

In this paper we consider a next generation edge architecture where traffic is routed via a proxy located close to the network edge (e.g. within a cloudlet). This creates freedom to implement new transport layer behaviour over the wireless path between proxy and clients. We use this freedom to develop a novel traffic shaping controller for the downlink in 802.11ac WLANs that adjusts the send rate to each WLAN client so as to maintain a target number of packets aggregated in each transmitted frame. In this way robust low-delay operation at high data rates becomes genuinely feasible across a wide range of network conditions. Key to achieving robust operation is the design of an appropriate feedback controller, and it is this which is our focus. We develop a novel nonlinear control design inspired by the solution to an associated proportional fair optimisation problem. The controller compensates for system nonlinearities and so can be used for the full envelope of operation. The robust stability of the closed-loop system is analysed and the selection of control design parameters discussed. We develop an implementation of the nonlinear control design and use this to present a performance evaluation using both simulations and experimental measurements.

With the promise to shape the future of industry, multi-agent robotic technologies have the potential to change many aspects of daily life. Over the coming decade, they are expected to impact transportation systems, military applications such as reconnaissance and surveillance, search-and-rescue operations, or space missions, as well as provide support to emergency first responders. Motivated by the latest developments in the field of robotics, this thesis contributes to the evolution of the future generation of multi-agent robotic systems as they become smarter, more accurate, and diversified in terms of applications. But in order to achieve these goals, the individual agents forming cooperative robotic systems need to be specialized in what they can accomplish, while ensuring accuracy and preserving the ability to perform diverse tasks. This thesis addresses the problem of task allocation in swarm robotics in the specific context where specialized capabilities of the individual agents are considered. Based on the assumption that each individual agent possesses specialized functional capabilities and that the expected tasks, which are distributed in the surrounding environment, impose specific requirements, the proposed task allocation mechanisms are formulated in two different spaces. First, a rudimentary form of the team members’ specialization is formulated as a cooperative control problem embedded in the agents’ dynamics control space. Second, an advanced formulation of agents’ specialization is defined to estimate the individual agents’ task allocation probabilities in a dedicated specialization space, which represents the core contribution of this thesis to the advancement and practice in the area of swarm robotics. The original task allocation process formulated in the specialization space evolves through four stages of development. First, a task features recognition stage is conceptually introduced to leverage the output of a sensing layer embedded in robotic agents to drive the proposed task allocation scheme. Second, a matching scheme is developed to best match each agent’s specialized capabilities with the corresponding detected tasks. At this stage, a general binary definition of agents’ specialization serves as the basis for task-agent association. Third, the task-agent matching scheme is expanded to an innovative probabilistic specialty-based task-agent allocation framework to generalize the concept and exploit the potential of agents’ specialization consideration. Fourth, the general framework is further refined with a modulated definition of the agents’ specialization based on their mechanical, physical structure, and embedded resources. The original framework is extended and a prioritization layer is also introduced to improve the system’s response to complex tasks that are characterized based on the recognition of multiple classes. Experimental validation of the proposed specialty-based task allocation approach is conducted in simulation and on real-world experiments, and the results are presented and discussed in light of potential applications to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed framework.

A robust nonlinear control strategy for controlling the fingers o f a n a nthropomorphic h and i s p resented. A 15 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) mathematical model of the human hand adhering to the hand's natural constraints is proposed. A sliding mode controller is devised to adjust the finger joint angles in order to achieve a desired pose. In addition, an impedance controller is devised to modify the joint angles in accordance with the force measured at the fingertips thereby ensuring proper grip. In order to reduce the requirement of sensors, an output feedback scheme is proposed using a high gain observer which allows estimation of the system behavior and guarantee robustness. Finally, the control strategy is tested with the help of simulations that verify the efficacy of the proposed output feedback controller (OFB).

This chapter provides a very brief introduction to many areas in nonlinear systems theory and includes some of the basic mathematical modelling results that are needed later. Common static nonlinear functions are first described that are often used as part of a simple nonlinear system model. Dynamic nonlinear systems are introduced and methods of approximating nonlinear systems such as linearization methods, linear parameter-varying systems and state-dependent system models. The review of nonlinear control design methods is not meant to be exhaustive but it does provide a brief introduction to some of the most popular methods that are referred in later chapters. Hybrid systems and nonlinear system identification methods are topics that are covered briefly since they are of growing importance in applications and relate to some of the model structures employed later. This chapter can be skipped and just used for reference purposes for those wishing to move quickly to the more practical topics in control systems design.

The discrete time Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) techniques have some important properties. They can be used successfully to the control of different type of Single Input and Single Output (SISO) systems: Linear Time Invariant (LTI) systems with unknown parameters and Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) systems. This method can be considered also as a nonlinear control design, where the system parameters will be updated in each iteration.

In this paper, an operator-based robust perfect control for nonlinear semiconductor refrigeration device with uncertainties and perturbation is considered. For the research about the properties of the semiconductor refrigeration, an aluminum plate with Peltier device is very representative. Therefore, the perfect tracking control performance of semiconductor refrigeration can be investigated by using this aluminum plate with Peltier device. Moreover, the operator based robust right coprime factorization (RRCF) approach is convenient in analysis and designing control system of nonlinear plant with uncertainties and perturbation. Based on the above reasons, an operator-based robust tracking control design for nonlinear semiconductor refrigeration device with uncertainties and perturbation is investigated by using an operator-based robust right coprime factorization approach, where the operator-based disturbance and state observers based on nominal plant properties are designed to compensate the effect of uncertainties and perturbation. A realizable operator controller is designed to improve the control performance and to realize the perfect tracking. The sufficient condition of robust stability for the designed system is derived. The robust stability condition ensured that the output tracking performance is realized. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed design scheme was illustrated by the simulation and experimental results.

The modeling and control of batch processes is a challenging and important problem especially when uncertainty and time delay is involved. The uncertainty maybe unadjustable during the practical operation, such the delay tolerability of batch reactors under uncertainty should be figured out to guarantee the operation reliability and safety. To find the maximum time delay that the system can tolerate, a delay tolerability index problem (DTI) is proposed based on the bisection search method combing with dynamic response analysis, where the Nonlinear Control Design package (NCD) is used to optimize the control action. The specific searching procedure and the proposed strategy are also investigated and tested by a batch reactor and a practical polymerization semibatch reactor. All the simulation and analysis results show that the proposed strategy may provide a simple and effective method for the computation and assessment of the maximum tolerable delay for batch reactors under uncertainty.

International audience; This paper presents a nonlinear control strategy with a nested control structure for a class of multi-terminal VSC HVDC systems. An output control law is first proposed, which is based on the passive output. When the output variables converge to zero with the developed output control law, the system behavior is governed by the uncontrolled zero dynamics. However, due to some desired control variables such as the DC voltage that belong to the internal dynamics, an outer control loop is then suggested to arbitrarily drive the zero dynamics, which provides a reference to be tracked by the output control law. The performance of the proposed control algorithm is evaluated by numerical simulations which show that the system has a much faster convergence rate than the controller without the outer loop.

In this paper we deal with nonlinear control design for Parrot Mambo or Parrot Rolling Spider quadcopters using Simulink Support Package for Parrot Minidrones. A full rigid body model of the flying vehicle that doesn’t assume smallness of the Euler angles is considered. For synthesis of the control the nonlinear dynamics inversion and integrator backstepping approaches are used. Block diagrams illustrate how the control laws are applied to Parrot Minidrone flight control. Exercises to design nonlinear Parrot Minidrone control algorithms as Simulink Subsystem blocks are suggested.

[abstFig src='/00280004/14.jpg' width='300' text='Robot arm with micro-hand system' ] This work focuses on a robust nonlinear control design of a robot arm with micro-hand (RAMH) by using operator-based robust right coprime factorization (RRCF) approach. In the proposed control system, we can control the endpoint position of robot arm and obtain the desired force of micro-hand to perform a task, and a miniature pneumatic curling soft (MPCS) actuator which can generate bidirectional curling motions in different positive and negative pressures is used to develop the fingers of micro-hand. In detail, to control successively the precise position of robot arm and the desired force of three fingers according to the external environment or task involved, this paper proposes a double-loop feedback control architecture using operator-based RRCF approach. First, the inner-loop feedback control scheme is designed to control the angular position of the robot arm, the operator controllers and the tracking controller are designed, and the robust stability and tracking conditions are derived. Second, the complex stable inner-loop and micro-hand with three fingers are viewed as two right factorizations separately, a robust control scheme using operator-based RRCF approach is presented to control the fingers forces, and the robust tracking conditions are also discussed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control system is verified by experimental and simulation results.

The objective of this paper is to design and coordinate controllers that will enhance transient stability of three dimensions motor subject to large disturbances. Two specific classes of controllers have been investigated, the first one is a type of disturbance signals added to the excitation systems of the generating units. To address a wide range of operating conditions, a nonlinear control design technique, called highly nonlinear computed torque control, is used. While these two types of controllers improve the dynamic performance significantly, a coordination of these controllers is even more promising. Results show that the proposed control technique provides better stability than conventional computed torque fixed gain controllers.

This paper presents new results on the robust global stabilization and the gain assignment problems for stochastic nonlinear systems. Three stochastic nonlinear control design schemes are developed. Furthermore, a new stochastic gain assignment method is developed for a class of uncertain interconnected stochastic nonlinear systems. This method can be combined with the nonlinear small-gain theorem to design partial-state feedback controllers for stochastic nonlinear systems. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

In this paper, an adaptive nonlinear control design for quadrotors is presented using nonlinear dynamic inversion and model-following neuro-adaptive techniques. The baseline controller is designed using dynamic inversion approach that exploits the time scale separation principle. The design works well if the model is perfectly known. However, the quadrotor system can have uncertainty in parameters. To tackle this, a neuro-adaptive controller is augmented with the baseline controller. The approach uses a single layer neural network to learn unknown dynamics and an adaptive law is employed to ensure that the quadrotor behave in the desired manner. A Lyapunov approach is used to show that the approximated dynamics remains bounded.

The present thesis develops a new control approach for scale-model airplanes. The proposed control solutions exploit a simple but pertinent nonlinear model of aerodynamic forces acting on the aircraft. Nonlinear controllers are based on a hierarchical structure, and are derived on the basis of theoretical stability and convergence analyses. They are designed to operate on a large spectrum of operating conditions. In particular, they avoid the singularities associated with the parameterization of the attitude and the heading of the vehicle, and do not rely on a decoupling between longitudinal and lateral dynamics. First, the trajectory tracking problem is addressed by extending the thrust vectoring method used for small rotor vehicles to the case of fixed wing vehicles. In the case of airplanes, the main challenge is to take into account the aerodynamic forces in the design of control systems. In order to solve this problem, the proposed control is designed and analyzed on the basis of the proposed aerodynamic forces model. The flight envelope is thus broadened beyond trim trajectories which are classically used in the literature. This solution is then adapted to the path following problem, and kinematic guidance and dynamic control laws are developed within a single coherent framework that applies to almost any regular 3D path. The proposed control laws incorporate integral terms that robustify the control with respect to unmodelled dynamics. Several practical issues are addressed and the proposed control laws are validated via hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Finally, successful flight test results illustrate the soundness and performance of the proposed control laws.; Cette thèse développe une nouvelle approche de contrôle pour les avions à échelle réduite. Les lois de commande proposées exploitent un modèle non linéaire simple mais pertinent des forces aérodynamiques appliquées à l’aéronef. Ils reposent sur une structure hiérarchique de contrôle non linéaires, et sont synthétisées sur la base d’analyse de stabilité et de convergence théoriques. Ils sont conçus pour fonctionner sur un large domaine de vol. En particulier, ils évitent les singularités associées à la paramétrisation de l'attitude et la direction de la vitesse. Dans un premier temps, le problème de stabilisation de trajectoires de référence est résolu en étendant la méthode du "thrust vectoring", utilisée pour les véhicules à voilure tournante, au cas des aéronefs à voilure fixe. Dans le cas des avions, le principal défi est de prendre en compte les forces aérodynamiques dans la conception des systèmes de commande. Afin de résoudre ce problème, le contrôle proposé est conçu et analysé sur la base du modèle de forces aérodynamique proposé. Le domaine d'utilisation de cette loi de commande est élargi et englobe les trajectoires d'équilibre (trim trajectories) qui sont classiquement utilisées dans la littérature. Cette solution est ensuite adaptée au problème de suivi de chemin, afin de concevoir des lois de guidage cinématique et de contrôle dynamique applicables à presque tout chemin 3D régulier. Les lois de contrôle proposées contiennent des termes intégraux qui robustifient le contrôle vis-à-vis de dynamiques non modélisées. Plusieurs problèmes pratiques sont adressés et les lois de commande proposées sont validées par des simulations du type "hardware-in-the-loop". Enfin, des résultats d'essais en vol illustrent la performance des lois de contrôle proposées.

The present thesis develops a new control approach for scale-model airplanes. The proposed control solutions exploit a simple but pertinent nonlinear model of aerodynamic forces acting on the aircraft. Nonlinear controllers are based on a hierarchical structure, and are derived on the basis of theoretical stability and convergence analyses. They are designed to operate on a large spectrum of operating conditions. In particular, they avoid the singularities associated with the parameterization of the attitude and the heading of the vehicle, and do not rely on a decoupling between longitudinal and lateral dynamics. First, the trajectory tracking problem is addressed by extending the thrust vectoring method used for small rotor vehicles to the case of fixed wing vehicles. In the case of airplanes, the main challenge is to take into account the aerodynamic forces in the design of control systems. In order to solve this problem, the proposed control is designed and analyzed on the basis of the proposed aerodynamic forces model. The flight envelope is thus broadened beyond trim trajectories which are classically used in the literature. This solution is then adapted to the path following problem, and kinematic guidance and dynamic control laws are developed within a single coherent framework that applies to almost any regular 3D path. The proposed control laws incorporate integral terms that robustify the control with respect to unmodelled dynamics. Several practical issues are addressed and the proposed control laws are validated via hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Finally, successful flight test results illustrate the soundness and performance of the proposed control laws.; Cette thèse développe une nouvelle approche de contrôle pour les avions à échelle réduite. Les lois de commande proposées exploitent un modèle non linéaire simple mais pertinent des forces aérodynamiques appliquées à l’aéronef. Ils reposent sur une structure hiérarchique de contrôle non linéaires, et sont synthétisées sur la base d’analyse de stabilité et de convergence théoriques. Ils sont conçus pour fonctionner sur un large domaine de vol. En particulier, ils évitent les singularités associées à la paramétrisation de l'attitude et la direction de la vitesse. Dans un premier temps, le problème de stabilisation de trajectoires de référence est résolu en étendant la méthode du "thrust vectoring", utilisée pour les véhicules à voilure tournante, au cas des aéronefs à voilure fixe. Dans le cas des avions, le principal défi est de prendre en compte les forces aérodynamiques dans la conception des systèmes de commande. Afin de résoudre ce problème, le contrôle proposé est conçu et analysé sur la base du modèle de forces aérodynamique proposé. Le domaine d'utilisation de cette loi de commande est élargi et englobe les trajectoires d'équilibre (trim trajectories) qui sont classiquement utilisées dans la littérature. Cette solution est ensuite adaptée au problème de suivi de chemin, afin de concevoir des lois de guidage cinématique et de contrôle dynamique applicables à presque tout chemin 3D régulier. Les lois de contrôle proposées contiennent des termes intégraux qui robustifient le contrôle vis-à-vis de dynamiques non modélisées. Plusieurs problèmes pratiques sont adressés et les lois de commande proposées sont validées par des simulations du type "hardware-in-the-loop". Enfin, des résultats d'essais en vol illustrent la performance des lois de contrôle proposées.