AbstractsEngineering

Robust tracking control and signal estimation for networked control systems

by Hui Zhang




Institution: University of Victoria
Department:
Year: 2012
Keywords: networked control systems; robust control; H_infty control; linear matrix inequalities
Record ID: 1956734
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4033


Abstract

Networked control systems (NCSs) are known as distributed control systems (DCSs) which are based on traditional feedback control systems but closed via a real-time communication channel. In an NCS, the control and feedback signals are exchanged among the system’s components in the form of information packages through the communication channel. The research of NCSs is important from the application perspective due to the significant advantages over the traditional point-to-point control. However, the insertion of the communication links would also bring challenges and constraints such as the network-induced delays, the missing packets, and the inter symbol interference (ISI) into the system design. In order to tackle these issues and move a step further toward industry applications, two important design problems are investigated in the control areas: Tracking Control (Chapter 2–Chapter 5) and Signal Estimation (Chapter 6–Chapter8). With the fact that more than 90% of control loops in industry are controlled by proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers, the first work in this thesis aims to propose the design algorithm on PID controllers for NCSs. Such a design will not require the change or update of the existing industrial hardware, and it will enjoy the advantages of the NCSs. The second motivation is that, due to the network-induced constraints, there is no any existing work on tuning the PID gains for a general NCS with a state-space model. In Chapter 2, the PID tracking control for multi-variable NCSs subject to time-varying delays and packet dropouts is exploited. The H_infty control is employed to attenuate the load disturbance and the measurement noise. In Chapter 3, the probabilistic delay model is used to design the delay-scheduling tracking controllers for NCSs. The tracking control strategy consists of two parts: (1) the feedforward control can enhance the transient response, and (2) the feedback control is the digital PID control. In order to compensate for the delays on both communication links, the predictive control scheme is adopted. To make full use of the delay information, it is better to use the Markov chain to model the network-induced delays and the missing packets. A common assumption on the Markov chain model in the literature is that the probability transition matrix is precisely known. However, the assumption may not hold any more when the delay is time-varying in a large set and the statistics information on the delays is inadequate. In Chapter 4, it is assumed that the transition matrices are with partially unknown elements. An observer-based robust energy-to-peak tracking controller is designed for the NCSs. In Chapter 5, the step tracking control problem for the nonlinear NCSs is in- vestigated. The nonlinear plant is represented by Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy linear model. The control strategy is a modified PI control. With an augmentation technique, the tracking controller design problem is…