A robustly stable output feedback saturated controller for the boost DC-to-DC converter

The problem of regulating the output voltage of the Boost DC-to-DC power converter has attracted the attention of many control researchers for several years now. Besides its practical relevance, the system is an interesting theoretical case study because it is a switched device whose averaged dynamics are described by a bilinear second order nonminimum phase system with saturated input, partial state measurement and a highly uncertain parameter – the load resistance. In this paper we propose an output-feedback saturated controller which ensures regulation of the desired output voltage and is, at the same time, insensitive to uncertainty in the load resistance. Furthermore, bounds on this parameter can be used to tune the controller so as to (locally) ensure robust performance, e.g., that the transient has no (under) over-shoot. The controller, which is designed following the passivity-based interconnection and damping assignment methodology recently proposed in the literature, is a static nonlinear output feedback. This allows us to invoke simple phase-plane techniques to determine the exact domain of attraction as well as the admissible initial conditions that ensure the control objectives. One final advantage of our controller is that it is computationally less demanding than the industry standard lead-lag filters.