Nonlinear design of adaptive controllers for linear systems

A new approach to adaptive control of linear systems abandons the traditional certainty-equivalence concept and treats the control of linear plants with unknown parameters as a nonlinear problem. A recursive design procedure introduces at each step new design parameters and incorporates them in a novel Lyapunov function. This function encompasses all the states of the adaptive system and forces them to converge to a manifold of smallest possible dimension. Only as many controller parameters are updated as there are unknown plant parameters, and the dynamic order of the resulting controllers is no higher (and in most cases is lower) than that of traditional adaptive schemes. A simulation comparison with a standard indirect linear scheme shows that the new nonlinear scheme significantly improves transient performance without an increase in control effort     

Embedded software-based self-test for programmable core-baseddesigns

The programmable cores on SoCs can perform on-chip test generation, measurement, response analysis, and even diagnosis. This software-based approach to self-testing enables at-speed testing and incurs low DFT overhead. We give an overview of the existing embedded software-based self-testing and self-diagnosis methods for core-based SoC designs, and we discuss the challenges to further developing this new testing paradigm     

Robust predictor feedback for discrete-time systems with input delays

This work studies the design problem of feedback stabilisers for discrete-time systems with input delays. A backstepping procedure is proposed for disturbance-free discrete-time systems. The feedback law designed by using backstepping coincides with the predictor-based feedback law used in continuous-time systems with input delays. However, simple examples demonstrate that the sensitivity of the closed-loop system with respect to modelling errors increases as the value of the delay increases. The paper proposes a Lyapunov redesign procedure that can minimise the effect of the uncertainty. Specific results are provided for linear single-input discrete-time systems with multiplicative uncertainty. The feedback law that guarantees robust global exponential stability is a nonlinear, homogeneous of degree 1 feedback law.     

Boundary feedback stabilization of homogeneous equilibria in unstable fluid mixtures

We consider the problem of boundary feedback stabilization of homogeneous equilibria in unstable fluid mixtures that are governed by unstable linear reaction-convection-diffusion equations. We extend boundary feedback control laws designed for the one-dimensional reaction-diffusion equation using the backstepping method to this higher-dimensional case. We show that, under certain mathematical conditions on the velocity field, boundary feedback controls similar to the ones for one-dimensional equations also works for the higher dimensional case and exponentially stabilize the homogeneous equilibrium zero at any given decay rate.     

Time‐ and State‐Dependent Input Delay‐Compensated Bang‐Bang Control of a Screw Extruder for 3D Printing

In this paper, a delay‐compensated bang‐bang control design methodology for the control of the nozzle output flow rate of screw extruder‐based three‐dimensional printing processes is developed. A geometrical decomposition of the screw extruder in a partially and a fully filled regions allows to describe the material convection in the extruder chamber by a one‐dimensional hyperbolic partial differential equation (PDE) coupled with an ordinary differential equation. After solving the hyperbolic PDE by the method of characteristics, the coupled PDE–ordinary differential equation's system is transformed into a nonlinear state‐dependent input delay system. The aforementioned delay system is extended to the non‐isothermal case with the consideration of periodic fluctuations acting on the material's convection speed, which represent the process variabilities due to temperature changes in the extruder chamber, resulting to a nonlinear system with an input delay that simultaneously depends on the state and the time variable. Global exponential stability of the nonlinear delay‐free plant is established under a piecewise exponential feedback controller that is designed. By combining the nominal, piecewise exponential feedback controller with nonlinear predictor feedback, the compensation of the time‐dependent and state‐dependent input delay of the extruder model is achieved. Global asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop system under the bang‐bang predictor feedback control law is established when certain conditions related to the extruder design and the material properties, as well as to the magnitude and frequency of the materials transport speed variations, are satisfied. Simulations results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control design. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Role of residual stress field interaction in strengthening of particulate-reinforced composites

A quantitative analysis was conducted on the effect of residual thermoelastic stress concentrations on the strength of particle-reinforced brittle matrix systems. The analysis is derived from the stress intensity factor for a periodic array of coplanar cracks emanating from the matrix-particle interface. It is shown that the major drop in strength occurs at smaller volume fractions of second phase where the residual stress field interaction effects are minimal. The effect of volume fraction on strength becomes important at larger volume fractions (normally above 10–15%). The theory is compared with experimental measurements of strength for glass and alumina matrix composites as a function of the particle volume fraction, its size, and thermal mismatch .     

Crack extension and arrest within the particle subjected to tensile thermoelastic stresses in brittle matrix composites

A stress relaxation mechanism which entails circumferential cracking around a spherical particle is presented. In a dispersion-strengthened system, composed of spherical particles of different elastic and fracture properties and a matrix of lower thermal expansion, the location and extent of crack propagation is determined by the relative magnitude of elastic and fracture properties of the matrix and the particulate phase. A simple energy balance criteria is adopted to describe the extent of post-initiation crack propagation and to show the relationship between the initial flaw size and the arrested crack length. The major implications of the analysis are discussed in the light of the reported experimental data.     

Adaptive error feedback regulation problem for 1D wave equation

By using the adaptive control approach, we solve the error feedback regulator problem for the one‐dimensional wave equation with a general harmonic disturbance anticollocated with control and with two types of disturbed measurements, ie, one collocated with control and the other anti‐collocated with control. Different from the classical error feedback regulator design, which is based on the internal mode principle, we give the adaptive servomechanism design for the system by making use of the measured tracking error (and its time derivative) and the estimation mechanism for the parameters of the disturbance and of the unknown reference. Constructing auxiliary systems and observer and applying the backstepping method for infinite‐dimensional system play important roles in the design. The control objective, which is to regulate the tracking error to zero and to keep the states bounded, is achieved.