Discrete‐time repetitive controller for time‐delay systems with disturbance observer

A novel discrete‐time repetitive controller design for time‐delay systems subject to a periodic reference and exogenous periodic disturbances is presented. The main idea behind the proposed approach is to take advantage of the plant delay in the controller design, and not to compensate for the effect of this delay. To facilitate this concept, we introduce an appropriate time‐delay and a compensator in a positive feedback connection with the plant, such that a generator for periodic signals is constructed. Then a proportional controller is used to stabilize the closed‐loop system. The tracking control capability is thus guaranteed according to the internal model principle (IMP). In addition, to attenuate external periodic disturbances, a disturbance observer (DO) is developed to simultaneously achieve reference tracking and disturbance rejection. The possible fractional delay due to the digital discretization is handled by using a fractional delay filter approximation. The proposed controller has a simple structure, in which only a proportional parameter and a low‐pass filter are required to be chosen. The closed‐loop stability conditions and a robustness analysis under model uncertainties are studied. Numerical simulations and practical experiments on a servo motor system are conducted to verify the feasibility and simplicity of the proposed controller. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Generalized extended state observer–based repetitive control for systems with mismatched disturbances

A generalized extended state observer (GESO) is devised to improve the disturbances rejection performance in a repetitive‐control system (RCS) for a class of single‐input, single‐output nonlinear plants with nonintegral chain form and mismatched disturbances. By appropriately choosing a disturbance compensation gain and incorporating the disturbance estimate into a repetitive control law, a GESO‐based RCS is established. In this system, the repetitive controller ensures tracking of a periodic reference input, and the incorporation of the disturbance compensation into the control input enables attenuating the lumped disturbance from the system output. Stability criteria and design algorithms have been developed for the system. A case study on the speed control of a rotational control system exhibits that the GESO‐based RCS delivers not only a promising disturbance rejection performance but also a superior property of tracking performance.     

Finite‐time tracking control for a class of nonlinear systems with multiple mismatched disturbances

This article investigates the finite‐time output tracking problem for a class of nonlinear systems with multiple mismatched disturbances. To efficiently estimate the disturbances and their derivatives, a continuous finite‐time disturbance observer (CFTDO) design method is developed. Based on the modified adding a power integrator method and CFTDO technique, a composite tracking controller is constructed such that the system output can track the desired reference signal in finite time. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control approach.     

Delay‐ and Packet‐Disordering‐Dependent H∞ Output Tracking Control for Networked Control Systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of H_∞ output tracking control for networked control systems (NCSs) with network‐induced delay and packet disordering. Different from the results in existing literature, the controller design in this paper is both delay‐ and packet‐disordering‐dependent. Based on the different cases of consecutive predictions, the networked output tracking system is modeled into a switched system. Moreover, by the corresponding switching‐based Lyapunov functional approach, a linear matrix inequality (LMI)‐based procedure is proposed for designing state‐feedback controllers, which guarantees that the output of the closed‐loop NCSs tracks the output of a given reference model well in the H_∞ sense. In addition, the proposed method can be applied variously due to all kinds of prediction numbers of the consecutive disordering packet have been considered, and the designed controller is based on the prediction case in the last transmission interval, which brings about less conservatism. Finally numerical examples and simulations are used to illustrate the effectiveness and validity of the proposed switching‐based method and the delay‐ and packet‐disordering‐dependent H_∞ output tracking controller design.     

Additive‐state‐decomposition‐based tracking control framework for a class of nonminimum phase systems with measurable nonlinearities and unknown disturbances

This paper aims to propose an additive‐state‐decomposition‐based tracking control framework, based on which the output feedback tracking problem is solved for a class of nonminimum phase systems with measurable nonlinearities and unknown disturbances. This framework is to ‘additively’ decompose the output feedback tracking problem into two more tractable problems, namely an output feedback tracking problem for a linear time invariant system and a state feedback stabilization problem for a nonlinear system. Then, one can design a controller for each problem respectively using existing methods, and these two designed controllers are combined together to achieve the original control goal. The main contribution of the paper lies on the introduction of an additive state decomposition scheme and its implementation to mitigate the design difficulty of the output feedback tracking control problem for nonminimum phase nonlinear systems. To demonstrate the effectiveness, an illustrative example is given. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time‐varying input delay compensation for nonlinear systems with additive disturbance: An output feedback approach

This paper addresses the output feedback tracking control of a class of multiple‐input and multiple‐output nonlinear systems subject to time‐varying input delay and additive bounded disturbances. Based on the backstepping design approach, an output feedback robust controller is proposed by integrating an extended state observer and a novel robust controller, which uses a desired trajectory‐based feedforward term to achieve an improved model compensation and a robust delay compensation feedback term based on the finite integral of the past control values to compensate for the time‐varying input delay. The extended state observer can simultaneously estimate the unmeasurable system states and the additive disturbances only with the output measurement and delayed control input. The proposed controller theoretically guarantees prescribed transient performance and steady‐state tracking accuracy in spite of the presence of time‐varying input delay and additive bounded disturbances based on Lyapunov stability analysis by using a Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional. A specific study on a 2‐link robot manipulator is performed; based on the system model and the proposed design procedure, a suitable controller is developed, and comparative simulation results are obtained to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed control scheme.     

A new event‐driven output‐based discrete‐time control for the sporadic MIMO tracking problem

This paper presents a new sporadic control approach to the tracking problem for MIMO closed‐loop systems. An LTI sampled data plant with unmeasurable state affected by external unknown disturbances is considered. The plant is interconnected to an event‐based digital dynamic output‐feedback controller via a network. Both the external reference and the unknown disturbance are assumed to be generated as the free output response of unstable LTI systems. The main feature of the new event‐driven communication logic (CL) is that it works without the strict requirement of a state vector available for measurement. The purpose of the CL is to reduce as much as possible the number of triggered messages along the feedback and feedforward paths with respect to periodic sampling, still preserving internal stability and without appreciably degrading the control system tracking capability. The proposed event‐driven CL is composed of a sensor CL (SCL) and of a controller CL (CCL). The SCL is based on the computation of a quadratic functional of the tracking error and of a corresponding suitably computed time‐varying threshold: a network message from the sensor to the controller is triggered only if the functional equals or exceeds the current value of the threshold. The CCL is directly driven by the SCL: the dynamic output controller sends a feedforward message to the plant only if it has received a message from the sensor at the previous sampled instant. Formulation of the controller in discrete‐time form facilitates its implementation and provides a minimum inter‐event time given by the sampling period. An example taken from the related literature shows the effectiveness of the new approach. The focus of this paper is on the stability and performance loss problems relative to the sporadic nature of the control law. Other topics such as network delay or packets dropout are not considered. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Output‐feedback tracking in causal nonminimum‐phase nonlinear systems using higher‐order sliding modes

Asymptotic output‐feedback tracking in a class of causal nonminimum phase uncertain nonlinear systems is addressed via sliding mode techniques. Sliding mode control is proposed for robust stabilization of the output tracking error in the presence of a bounded disturbance. The output reference profile and the unknown input/disturbance are supposed to be described by unknown linear exogenous systems of a given order. Local asymptotic stability of the output tracking error dynamics along with the boundedness of the internal states are proven. The unstable internal states are estimated asymptotically via the proposed multistage observer that is based on the method of extended system center. A higher‐order sliding mode observer/differentiator is used for the exact estimation of the input–output states in a finite time. The bounded disturbance is reconstructed asymptotically. A numerical example illustrates the efficiency of the proposed output‐feedback tracking approach developed for causal nonminimum phase nonlinear systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.