CAREER: Control and Integrated Design of Mechanical Systems via Linear Matrix Inequality Based Methods

这一职业项目为机械和结构系统的控制开发了系统和统一的方法，从而实现了对象参数和控制参数的集成设计，以提供优化的整体系统；获得低阶控制器，以满足硬件和控制实施的约束；利用结构系统模型的特殊数学形式，提供简化的设计方案和更简单的控制律；在设计过程中明确考虑饱和约束和控制回路时滞；并利用基于统一线性矩阵不等式(LMI)的公式开发了创新的计算算法。教育部分致力于解决今天在系统和控制领域对学生和执业工程师进行有效教学和培训方面的一些重要挑战。这项职业计划的教育目标具体如下：(I)通过促进跨系教学活动，促进休斯顿大学(UH)系统和控制教育的跨学科发展，(Ii)促进与该领域的快速变化和进步脱节的执业控制工程师的继续教育，(Iii)提供行业对系统和控制教育的看法，并解决系统和控制课程中的现实问题，以及(Iv)吸引新生进入控制工程，并激励高中生对科学和工程感兴趣。一个关于等离子体过程控制的项目被用作UH系统和控制的跨学科教学的示范范例。这一教育项目将与等离子处理实验室的化学工程学院合作进行。寻求与康明斯发动机公司、休斯航空航天公司、有效载荷集成公司和其他公司密切合作，以加强该项目研究和教育部分的行业相关性。

This CAREER project develops a systematic and unified methodology for control of mechanical and structural systems such that an integrated design of plant parameters and control parameters is achieved to provide optimized total systems; low-order controllers are obtained to satisfy hardware and control implementation constraints; special mathematical form of structural system models is exploited to provide simplified design schemes and simpler control laws; saturation constraints and control-loop time-delays are taken into account explicitly in the design process; and innovative computational algorithms using a unified Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) based formulation are developed. The education component seeks to address some important challenges in the effective teaching and training of students and practicing engineers in the systems and controls field today. In particular, the education goals of this career plan are the following: (i) to promote an interdisciplinary systems and controls education at the university of Houston (UH) by fostering cross-departmental teaching activities, (ii) to contribute to the continuing education of practicing control engineers that are disconnected from the rapid changes and advances in the field, (iii) to provide industry's perspectives in systems and control education and to address real-world problems in the systems and controls curriculum, and (iv) to attract freshmen students into control engineering and to motivate high-school students towards science and engineering. A project on control of plasma process is used as a demonstration paradigm for the interdisciplinary teaching of systems and controls at UH. This education project will be pursued in collaboration with the Chemical Engineering faculty at the Plasma Processing Laboratory. Close collaboration with Cummins Engine Company, Hughes Aerospace, the Payload Integration Company and other companies is pursued to strengthen the industrial relevance of research and education components of this project.