CAREER: Structure and Robustness in Nonlinear Control: Challenges from Fuel Cell Technology

这一建议的研究目标是开发系统设计工具，利用反馈系统中的非线性和结构特性，而不是超越。在我们的初步结果的鼓舞下，我们解决了观测器设计和对未建模动态的鲁棒性问题，这些问题对于非线性控制技术的实际应用至关重要。非线性系统中的各种动力学现象阻碍了对这些问题的建设性解决。相反，我们追求的是针对固有系统属性和非线性现象量身定做的特定结构设计。我们强大的设计工具利用各种类型的未建模动态和多变量结构来恢复可通过标称设计实现的稳定性和性能。PI将与联合技术研究中心合作，将这些设计工具应用于燃料电池电力系统中新出现的反馈问题。燃料电池技术特别适合美国，因为广阔的地理位置使得集中式电网容易发生故障，严格的环境法规强调了清洁发电的必要性。潜在的车载和便携式电力应用的一个主要挑战是高阶、互联的系统结构和严重的非线性，这些问题源于系统组件的紧密集成和电力负载的巨大变化。对未建模动态的稳健性对于低阶设计的可靠性至关重要。非线性观察者是非常重要的，因为商业上可用的传感器技术并不是设计在燃料电池环境中工作的。燃料电池的研究将为抽象和广泛的设计方法奠定基础，这些方法也将影响其他技术，如计算机网络、化学过程和航空发动机中的流体控制问题，在这些技术中，高阶系统模型和严重的非线性构成有效和可靠的反馈设计的障碍。该提议的教育目标是使更多的学生能够接触到非线性概念。PI将为希望在入门水平上学习非线性系统的本科生和研究生引入一门新课程。这门课程将加强未来从业者对非线性系统的欣赏，并吸引更多的学生参加我们的研究生研究项目。与当地学区的新愿景计划和伦斯勒理工学院合作，我们将把高中生纳入项目团队，与我们的本科生一起。提案中详细介绍的几个教学实验和计算机动画将使他们有机会在现实生活中激发他们接触动态现象和控制概念的机会。

The research objective of this proposal is to develop systematic design tools that exploit, ratherthan override, nonlinearities and structural properties in feedback systems. Encouraged by ourpreliminary results, we address the problems of observer design and robustness to unmodeleddynamics, which are crucial for practical applicability of nonlinear control techniques. The variety ofdynamic phenomena in nonlinear systems have hampered constructive solutions to these problems.In contrast, we pursue structure-specific designs which are tailored to inherent system propertiesand nonlinear phenomena. Our robust design tools exploit types of unmodeled dynamics andmultivariable structures to recover stability and performance achievable with nominal designs. Ourobservers take advantage of nonlinearities to enhance observer convergence and to recover stabilityof full state-feedback designs in certainty-equivalence implementations.In collaboration with United Technologies Research Center, the PI will apply these design toolsto emerging feedback problems in fuel cell power systems. Fuel cell technology is particularly suit-able for United States, because the wide geography makes centralized power networks prone tofailure, and the strict environmental regulations accentuate the necessity of clean power genera-tion.A major challenge for potential vehicular and portable power applications is the high-order,interconnected, system structure, and severe nonlinearities, which arise from tight integration ofsystem components and wide variations in the electric load. Robustness to unmodeled dynamicsis crucial for reliability of low-order designs. Nonlinear observers are of great importance becausecommercially available sensor technologies are not designed to operate in a fuel cell environment.The study of fuel cells will set the stage for abstractions and broad design methodologies which willalso impact other technologies, such as computer networks, chemical processes, and fluid controlproblems in aeroengines, where high-order system models and severe nonlinearities constitute anobstacle to efficient and reliable feedback designs.The educational objective of the proposal is to make nonlinear concepts accessible to a widerspectrum of students. The PI will introduce a new course for undergraduates, and graduate stu-dents who wish to study nonlinear systems at an introductory level. This course will enhance theappreciation of nonlinear systems among practitioners of the future, and attract more studentsto our graduate research program. In collaboration with the New Visions Program of local schooldistricts and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we will include high-school students in project teamswith our undergraduates. Several pedagogical experiments and computer animations, detailed inthe proposal, will give them a motivating real-life exposure to dynamic phenomena and controlconcepts.