Fastest recovery after feedback disruption

The problem of quickly reducing operating errors during recovery from a feedback disruption is considered. The objective is to design controllers that reduce operating errors as quickly as possible, once feedback has been restored. It is shown that robust optimal feedback controllers that achieve this objective do exist. Furthermore, it is shown that the performance of optimal controllers can be approximated as closely as desired by controllers that generate bang–bang input signals for the controlled system. Controllers that generate bang–bang signals are relatively easy to derive and implement, since bang–bang signals are characterised by a finite list of scalars – their switching times.