Intriguing nonlinear dynamics of a controller with a sluggish actuator

We apply a bifurcation-theoretic approach to the standard Moore–Greitzer compressor model in effort to understand a curious phenomenon. When one forces the actuator to respond sluggishly to commanded inputs, performance of the controller improves dramatically. We show that the behavior can be explained via Hopf–Hopf interactions of surge and rotating stall. Also, we argue that there is a broad class of controllers which possess the general dynamic features responsible for the surprising effectiveness of sluggish actuators.     

Robust State Feedback Control Through Actuators With Generalized Sector Nonlinearities And Saturation

In control systems, actuators often have nonlinear characteristics that can not be neglected. For linear systems driven by actuators satisfying the generalized sector condition, a robust state feedback controller synthesis method is proposed to achieve the ultimate boundedness control. The method is based on the linear matrix inequality approach and is easy to apply. As an important special case of the generalized sector condition, the saturation characteristic of actuators is discussed separately, and non‐conservative results are obtained.     

BIMORPH PIEZOELECTRIC ACTUATOR FOR SMALL PIPE ROBOT

An experimental bimorph piezoelectric element (PZT) actuator for small pipe robot is developed. The robot can move in φ20 mm pipe, and can carry a CCD camera for detecting cracks or fine holes on inner surface of pipe. The velocity of the robot can reach 17～22 mm/s for vertical pipe up/down, respectively. Moving principle and its performance characteristics are presented.     

State space model predictive fault-tolerant control for batch processes with partial actuator failure

This paper presents a state space model predictive fault-tolerant control scheme for batch processes with unknown disturbances and partial actuator faults. To develop the model predictive fault-tolerant control, the batch process is first treated into a non-minimal representation using state space transformation. The relevant concepts of the corresponding model predictive fault-tolerant control is thus introduced through state space formulation, where improved closed-loop control performance is achieved even with unknown disturbances and actuator faults, because, unlike traditional model predictive fault-tolerant control, the proposed control method can directly regulate the process output/input changes in the design. For performance comparison, a traditional model predictive fault-tolerant control is also designed. Application to injection velocity control shows that the proposed scheme achieve the design objective well with performance improvement.     

Adaptronic Vibration Damping for Machine Tools

A newly designed adaptronic component with a powerful piezo-stack actuator for active damping of machine vibrations is presented in this paper. Especially for machine tools with parallel kinematics, which feature lightweight structures and which are built in order to obtain high processing speeds, the active damping of machine vibrations is important to achieve the desired system performance. Extensive simulation studies with flexible multibody systems in order to test different control algorithms such as dissipative control, integrated force feedback or H₂/H_∞ control and recent experimental results show the high potential to improve the system behavior.     

A Saturating Extension of an Output Feedback Controller for Internally Damped Euler‐Lagrange Systems

In this research, a novel extension of the passivity‐based output feedback trajectory tracking controller is developed for internally damped Euler‐Lagrange systems with input saturation. Compared with the previous output feedback controllers, this new design of a combined adaptive controller‐observer system will reduce the risk of actuator saturation effectively via generalized saturation functions. Semi‐global uniform ultimate boundedness stability of the tracking errors and state estimation errors is guaranteed by Lyapunov stability analysis. An application of the proposed saturated output feedback controller is the stabilization of a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot with saturated actuators towards desired trajectories. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed controller in dealing with the actuator saturation.     

Adaptive fault-tolerant control of linear systems with actuator saturation and L_2-disturbances

This paper studies the problem of designing adaptive fault-tolerant H-infinity controllers for linear timeinvariant systems with actuator saturation.The disturbance tolerance ability of the closed-loop system is measured by an optimal index.The notion of an adaptive H-infinity performance index is proposed to describe the disturbance attenuation performances of closed-loop systems.New methods for designing indirect adaptive fault-tolerant controllers via state feedback are presented for actuator fault compe...     

Robust H-infinity control for uncertain discrete-time Markovian jump systems with actuator saturation

The design of robust H-infinity controller for uncertain discrete-time Markovian jump systems with actuator saturation is addressed in this paper. The parameter uncertainties are assumed to be norm-bounded. Linear matrix inequality (LMI) conditions are proposed to design a set of controllers in order to satisfy the closed-loop local stability and closed-loop H-infinity performance. Using an LMI approach, a set of state feedback gains is constructed such that the set of admissible initial conditions is enlarged and formulated through solving an optimization problem. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.     

Fault tolerant control for singular systems with actuator saturation and nonlinear perturbation

In this paper, the problem of robust fault tolerant control for a class of singular systems subject to both time-varying state-dependent nonlinear perturbation and actuator saturation is investigated. A sufficient condition for the existence of a fixed-gain controller is first proposed which guarantees the regularity, impulse-free and stability of the closed-loop system under all possible faults. An optimization problem with LMI constraints is formulated to determine the largest contractively invariant ellipsoid. An adaptive fault tolerant controller is then developed to compensate for the failure effects on the system by estimating the fault and updating the design parameter matrices online. Both of these two controllers are in the form of a saturation avoidance feedback with the advantage of relatively small actuator capacities compared with the high gain counterpart. An example is included to illustrate the proposed procedures and their effectiveness.     

Preparation and performance of IPMC actuators with electrospun Nafion-MWNT composite electrodes

A new ionic polymer actuator was prepared with Nafion^®-117 membrane and electrodes made of an electrospun Nafion^®/multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) web. The surfaces of composite electrodes were ion-beam coated with gold layers of 2-3 μm thickness to reduce the surface resistance. The composite electrodes offer several advantages over conventional platinum electrodes prepared via electroless plating process, i.e. flexibility, simple processability in large scales, and batch-to-batch reproducibility. The new ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuators showed a rapid and large bending motion. Under an applied potential of 3 V dc, the maximum horizontal displacement (δ_max) measured at the tip of IPMC strip (cantilever length: 20 mm) was 16.7 mm, the tip velocity in the initial linear region was 10.5 mm/s, 88% of the δ_max was reached within initial 5 s, and the generated strain% was 0.79 (13.6 mm, 7.2 mm/s, 85%, and 0.88, respectively for a conventional Nafion^®-IPMC made via the electroless plating of platinum). It was noted that the energy efficiency of strain was over 10 times higher than that of the conventional Nafion^®-IPMC. And the crack formation of metal electrode after repeated bending deformation significantly reduced with the introduction of relatively flexible electrode assembly into the IPMC architecture. The remarkable improvements in its performance were considered to be due to the efficient quantum chemical and double-layer electrostatic effects in a charge injection model, induced by the good dispersion of MWNTs through a typical electrospinning technique.