A contractive sliding-mode MPC algorithm for nonlinear discrete-time systems

This paper investigates a sliding-mode model predictive control (MPC) algorithm with auxiliary contractive sliding vector constraint for constrained nonlinear discrete-time systems. By adding contractive constraint into the optimization problem in regular sliding-mode MPC algorithm, the value of the sliding vector is decreased to zero asymptotically, which means that the system state is driven into a vicinity of sliding surface with a certain width. Then, the system state moves along the sliding surface to the equilibrium point within the vicinity. By applying the proposed algorithm, the stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed. A numerical example of a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) system is given to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Constrained nonlinear MPC for accelerated tracking piece-wise references and its applications to thermal systems

In this paper, we propose a model predictive control (MPC) strategy for accelerated offset-free tracking piece-wise constant reference signals of nonlinear systems subject to state and control constraints. Some special contractive constraints on tracking errors and terminal constraints are embedded into the tracking nonlinear MPC formulation. Then, recursive feasibility and closed-loop convergence of the tracking MPC are guaranteed in the presence of piece-wise references and constraints by deriving some sufficient conditions. Moreover, the local optimality of the tracking MPC is achieved for unreachable output reference signals. By comparing to traditional tracking MPC, the simulation experiment of a thermal system is used to demonstrate the acceleration ability and the effectiveness of the tracking MPC scheme proposed here.     

Distributed model predictive control of constrained nonlinear systems with communication delays

Distributed model predictive control (MPC), having been proven to be efficient for large-scale control systems, is essentially enabled by communication network connections among involved subsystems (agents). This paper studies the distributed MPC problem for a class of continuous-time decoupled nonlinear systems subject to communication delays. By using a robustness constraint and designing a waiting mechanism, a delay-involved distributed MPC scheme is proposed. Furthermore, the iterative feasibility and stability properties are analyzed. It is shown that, if the communication delays are bounded by an upper bound, and the cooperation weights and the sampling period are designed appropriately, the overall system state converges to the equilibrium point. The theoretical results are verified by a simulation study.     

A systematic approach to adaptive observer synthesis for nonlinearsystems

Geometric techniques of controller design for nonlinear systems have enjoyed great success. A serious shortcoming, however, has been the need for access to full-state feedback. This paper addresses the issue of state estimation from limited sensor measurements in the presence of parameter uncertainty. An adaptive nonlinear observer is suggested for Lipschitz nonlinear systems, and the stability of this observer is shown to be related to finding solutions to a quadratic inequality involving two variables. A coordinate transformation is used to reformulate this inequality as a linear matrix inequality. A systematic algorithm is presented, which checks for feasibility of a solution to the quadratic inequality and yields an observer whenever the solution is feasible. The state estimation errors then are guaranteed to converge to zero asymptotically. The convergence of the parameters, however, is determined by a persistence-of-excitation-type constraint     

A stable block model predictive control with variable implementation horizon

In this paper, we present a stable model predictive control method for discrete-time nonlinear systems. The standard MPC scheme is modified to incorporate (1) a block implementation scheme where a sub-string of the optimized input sequence is applied instead of a single value; (2) an additional constraint which guarantees that a Lyapunov function will decrease over time; (3) a variable implementation window that facilitates the stability constraint enforcement. Stability of the closed-loop system with the proposed algorithm is established. Examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the control scheme. The impacts of several key design parameters on the overall performance are also analyzed and discussed.     

Enlarging the domain of attraction of MPC controllers

This paper presents a method for enlarging the domain of attraction of nonlinear model predictive control (MPC). The usual way of guaranteeing stability of nonlinear MPC is to add a terminal constraint and a terminal cost to the optimization problem such that the terminal region is a positively invariant set for the system and the terminal cost is an associated Lyapunov function. The domain of attraction of the controller depends on the size of the terminal region and the control horizon. By increasing the control horizon, the domain of attraction is enlarged but at the expense of a greater computational burden, while increasing the terminal region produces an enlargement without an extra cost.In this paper, the MPC formulation with terminal cost and constraint is modified, replacing the terminal constraint by a contractive terminal constraint. This constraint is given by a sequence of sets computed off-line that is based on the positively invariant set. Each set of this sequence does not need to be an invariant set and can be computed by a procedure which provides an inner approximation to the one-step set. This property allows us to use one-step approximations with a trade off between accuracy and computational burden for the computation of the sequence. This strategy guarantees closed loop-stability ensuring the enlargement of the domain of attraction and the local optimality of the controller. Moreover, this idea can be directly translated to robust MPC.     

约束非线性车辆队列分布式多目标模型预测控制

针对具有状态和控制约束的非线性车辆队列系统多目标控制问题,提出一种分布式多目标模型预测控制(model predictive control, MPC)策略.首先,基于前车-后车单向通信拓扑,建立网联车辆队列非线性纵向巡航模型,应用字典序算法描述分布式多目标MPC问题;然后,通过设计弦稳定与收缩约束,并结合MPC三要素条件,保证车辆队列在经济性能与协同性能最优条件下的稳定性和弦稳定性结果;最后,通过典型工况的仿真结果验证所提出策略的有效性.     

Robust MPC of constrained discrete-time nonlinear systems based on approximated reachable sets

A robust MPC for constrained nonlinear systems with uncertainties is presented. Outer bounds of the reachable sets of the system are used to predict the evolution of the system under uncertainty. A method that uses zonotopes to represent the approximated reachable sets is proposed. The closed-loop system is ultimately bounded thanks to a contractive constraint that drives the system to a robust invariant set.     

Output feedback model predictive control for LPV systems based on quasi-min–max algorithm

This paper proposes a robust output feedback model predictive control (MPC) scheme for linear parameter varying (LPV) systems based on a quasi-min–max algorithm. This approach involves an off-line design of a robust state observer for LPV systems using linear matrix inequality (LMI) and an on-line robust output feedback MPC algorithm using the estimated state. The proposed MPC method for LPV systems is applicable for a variety of systems with constraints and guarantees the robust stability of the output feedback systems. A numerical example for an LPV system subject to input constraints is given to demonstrate its effectiveness.     

Economic MPC with a contractive constraint for nonlinear systems

In this paper, we consider the stability issue of economic model predictive control (EMPC) for constrained nonlinear systems and propose a new contractive constraint formulation of nonlinear EMPC schemes. This formulation is one of Lyapunov‐based approaches in which the contractive function chosen a priori can be used as a Lyapunov function. Some conditions are given to guarantee recursive feasibility and asymptotic stability of the EMPC. Moreover, we analyze the transient economic performance of the EMPC closed‐loop system in some finite‐time intervals. The proposed EMPC scheme is applied to a chemical reactor model to illustrate its utility and benefits. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Infinite horizon MPC with non-minimal state space feedback

In the MPC literature, stability is usually assured under the assumption that the state is measured. Since the closed-loop system may be nonlinear because of the constraints, it is not possible to apply the separation principle to prove global stability for the output feedback case. It is well known that, a nonlinear closed-loop system with the state estimated via an exponentially converging observer combined with a state feedback controller can be unstable even when the controller is stable.One alternative to overcome the state estimation problem is to adopt a non-minimal state space model, in which the states are represented by measured past inputs and outputs [P.C. Young, M.A. Behzadi, C.L. Wang, A. Chotai, Direct digital and adaptative control by input–output, state variable feedback pole assignment, International Journal of Control 46 (1987) 1867–1881; C. Wang, P.C. Young, Direct digital control by input–output, state variable feedback: theoretical background, International Journal of Control 47 (1988) 97–109]. In this case, no observer is needed since the state variables can be directly measured. However, an important disadvantage of this approach is that the realigned model is not of minimal order, which makes the infinite horizon approach to obtain nominal stability difficult to apply. Here, we propose a method to properly formulate an infinite horizon MPC based on the output-realigned model, which avoids the use of an observer and guarantees the closed loop stability. The simulation results show that, besides providing closed-loop stability for systems with integrating and stable modes, the proposed controller may have a better performance than those MPC controllers that make use of an observer to estimate the current states.     

Robust nonlinear MPC without terminal constraint for tracking changing setpoints in the presence of non-additive unknown disturbance

This paper develops a novel robust tracking model predictive control (MPC) without terminal constraint for discrete-time nonlinear systems capable to deal with changing setpoints and unknown non-additive bounded disturbances. The MPC scheme without terminal constraint avoids difficult computations for the terminal region and is thus simpler to design and implement. However, the existence of disturbances and/or sudden changes in a setpoint may lead to feasibility and stability issues in this method. In contrast to previous works that considered changing setpoints and/or additive slowly varying disturbance, the proposed method is able to deal with changing setpoints and non-additive non-slowly varying disturbance. The key idea is the addition of tightened input and state (tracking error) constraints as new constraints to the tracking MPC scheme without terminal constraints based on artificial references. In the proposed method, the optimal tracking error converges asymptotically to the invariant set for tracking, and the perturbed system tracking error remains in a variable size tube around the optimal tracking error. Closed-loop input-to-state stability and recursive feasibility of the optimization problem for any piece-wise constant setpoint and non-additive disturbance are guaranteed by tightening input and state constraints as well as weighting the terminal cost function by an appropriate stabilizing weighting factor. The simulation results of the satellite attitude control system are provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed predictive controller.     

Optimal State Estimation and Fault Diagnosis for a Class of Nonlinear Systems

This study proposes a scheme for state estimation and,consequently,fault diagnosis in nonlinear systems.Initially,an optimal nonlinear observer is designed for nonlinear systems subject to an actuator or plant fault.By utilizing Lyapunov's direct method,the observer is proved to be optimal with respect to a performance function,including the magnitude of the observer gain and the convergence time.The observer gain is obtained by using approximation of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman(HJB)equation.The approximation is determined via an online trained neural network(NN).Next a class of affine nonlinear systems is considered which is subject to unknown disturbances in addition to fault signals.In this case,for each fault the original system is transformed to a new form in which the proposed optimal observer can be applied for state estimation and fault detection and isolation(FDI).Simulation results of a singlelink flexible joint robot(SLFJR)electric drive system show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.     

Adaptive neural network dynamic event-triggered control for strong interconnected stochastic nonlinear systems with output constraint

This paper proposes a dynamic event-triggered mechanism based command filtered adaptive neural network (NN) tracking control scheme for strong interconnected stochastic nonlinear systems with time-varying output constraints. By designing a state observer, the unmeasured states of the systems can be estimated. The NNs are utilized to handle the unknown intermediate functions. In the controller design process, the asymmetric time-varying barrier Lyapunov functions are used to guarantee that the systems outputs do not violate the constraint regions. By integrating the command filter with variable separation technique, the controller design process is more simple, and the problem of algebraic-loop can be solved which caused by interconnected functions. According to the Lyapunov stability theory, it can be ensured that all signals of the systems are bounded in probability. Finally, the availability of the developed control scheme can be showed by the simulation example.     

Dual closed‐loop tracking control for wheeled mobile robots via active disturbance rejection control and model predictive control

A dual closed‐loop tracking control is proposed for a wheeled mobile robot based on active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) and model predictive control (MPC). In the inner loop system, the ADRC scheme with an extended state observer (ESO) is proposed to estimate and compensate external disturbances. In the outer loop system, the MPC strategy is developed to generate a desired velocity for the inner loop dynamic system subject to a diamond‐shaped input constraint. Both effectiveness and stability analysis are given for the ESO and the dual closed‐loop system, respectively. Simulation results demonstrate the performances of the proposed control scheme.     

Feasible parallel-update distributed MPC for uncertain linear systems sharing convex constraints

A distributed MPC approach for linear uncertain systems sharing convex constraints is presented. The systems, which are dynamically decoupled but share constraints on state and/or inputs, optimize once, in parallel, at each time step and exchange plans with neighbours thereafter. Coupled constraint satisfaction is guaranteed, despite the simultaneous decision making, by extra constraint tightening in each local problem. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given on the margins for coupled constraint satisfaction, and a simple on-line scheme for selecting margins is proposed that satisfies the conditions. Robust feasibility and stability of the overall system are guaranteed by use of the tube MPC concept in conjunction with the extra coupled constraint tightening.     

Observer-Based Adaptive Fuzzy Tracking Control Using Integral Barrier Lyapunov Functionals for A Nonlinear System With Full State Constraints

A new fuzzy adaptive control method is proposed for a class of strict feedback nonlinear systems with immeasurable states and full constraints. The fuzzy logic system is used to design the approximator, which deals with uncertain and continuous functions in the process of backstepping design. The use of an integral barrier Lyapunov function not only ensures that all states are within the bounds of the constraint, but also mixes the states and errors to directly constrain the state, reducing the conservativeness of the constraint satisfaction condition. Considering that the states in most nonlinear systems are immeasurable, a fuzzy adaptive states observer is constructed to estimate the unknown states. Combined with adaptive backstepping technique, an adaptive fuzzy output feedback control method is proposed. The proposed control method ensures that all signals in the closed-loop system are bounded, and that the tracking error converges to a bounded tight set without violating the full state constraint. The simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.      

On the stability of constrained MPC without terminal constraint

The usual way to guarantee stability of model predictive control (MPC) strategies is based on a terminal cost function and a terminal constraint region. This note analyzes the stability of MPC when the terminal constraint is removed. This is particularly interesting when the system is unconstrained on the state. In this case, the computational burden of the optimization problem does not have to be increased by introducing terminal state constraints due to stabilizing reasons. A region in which the terminal constraint can be removed from the optimization problem is characterized depending on some of the design parameters of MPC. This region is a domain of attraction of the MPC without terminal constraint. Based on this result, it is proved that weighting the terminal cost, this domain of attraction of the MPC controller without terminal constraint is enlarged reaching (practically) the same domain of attraction of the MPC with terminal constraint; moreover, a practical procedure to calculate the stabilizing weighting factor for a given initial state is shown. Finally, these results are extended to the case of suboptimal solutions and an asymptotically stabilizing suboptimal controller without terminal constraint is presented.     

Affine and predictive control policies for a class of nonlinear systems

The input-state linear horizon (ISLH) for a nonlinear discrete-time system is defined as the smallest number of time steps it takes the system input to appear nonlinearly in the state variable. In this paper, we employ the latter concept and show that the class of constraint admissible N-step affine state-feedback policies is equivalent to the associated class of constraint admissible disturbance-feedback policies, provided that N is less than the system’s ISLH. The result generalizes a recent result in [Goulart, P. J., Kerrigan, E. C., Maciejowski, J. M. (2006). Optimization over state feedback policies for robust control with constraints. Automatica, 42(4), 523-533] and is significant because it enables one: (i) to determine a constraint admissible state-feedback policy by employing well-known convex optimization techniques; and (ii) to guarantee robust recursive feasibility of a class of model predictive control (MPC) policies by imposing a suitable terminal constraint. In particular, we propose an input-to-state stabilizing MPC policy for a class of nonlinear systems with bounded disturbance inputs and mixed polytopic constraints on the state and the control input. At each time step, the proposed MPC policy requires the solution of a single convex quadratic programme parameterized by the current system state.     

On the explicit dead-time compensation for robust model predictive control

Computational simplicity is one of the most important aspects to take into account in robust model predictive control (MPC). In dead-time processes, it is common to use an augmented state-space representation in order to apply robust MPC strategies but, this procedure may affect computational aspects. In this paper, explicit dead-time compensation will be used to avoid augmented representation. This technique will be analyzed in terms of robust stability and constraint satisfaction for discrete-time linear systems. The results of this discussion will be applied to a robust tube-based MPC strategy which is able to guarantee robust stability and constraint satisfaction of a dead-time system by considering a prediction model without dead-time. Moreover, taking advantage of the proposed scheme, the robust MPC will be particularized for first-order plus dead-time models which simplifies significantly controller synthesis. The proposed dead-time compensation method will be applied to different robust MPC strategies in two case studies: (i) a simulated quadruple-tank system, and (ii) an experimental scaled laboratory heater process.