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

这项建议的研究目标是开发系统的设计工具，利用，而不是覆盖，反馈系统的非线性和结构特性。我们的初步结果的鼓舞下，我们解决观测器的设计和鲁棒性unmodeleddynamics，这是非线性控制技术的实用性至关重要的问题。非线性系统中的各种动态现象阻碍了这些问题的建设性解决方案，相反，我们追求的是针对系统固有特性和非线性现象的结构特定设计。我们的稳健设计工具利用未建模动态和多变量结构来恢复标称设计可实现的稳定性和性能。我们的观测器利用非线性来增强观测器的收敛性，并在确定性等价实现中恢复完整状态反馈设计的稳定性。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动力系统中新出现的反馈问题。燃料电池技术特别适合美国，因为其广阔的地理位置使集中式电网容易发生故障，而严格的环境法规强调了清洁发电的必要性。潜在的车辆和便携式电源应用的主要挑战是高阶、互连的系统结构和严重的非线性，其起因于系统部件的紧密集成和电负载的广泛变化。对未建模动态的鲁棒性对低阶设计的可靠性至关重要。非线性观测器是非常重要的，因为商业上可用的传感器技术不是设计用于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，其中高阶系统模型和严重的非线性对有效和可靠的反馈设计构成了障碍。该提案的教育目标是使更广泛的学生能够理解非线性概念。PI将为本科生和希望在入门级学习非线性系统的研究生介绍一门新课程。这门课程将提高未来从业者对非线性系统的认识，并吸引更多的学生参加我们的研究生研究计划。在与当地学区和伦斯勒理工学院的新视野计划合作，我们将包括高中学生在项目团队与我们的本科生。几个教学实验和计算机动画，详细的建议，将给他们一个激励现实生活中的动态现象和控制概念的曝光。

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.