Performance Regulation and Tracking via Lookahead Simulation: Preliminary Results and Validation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel lookahead simulation-based feedback control method for target tracking, applicable to nonlinear, unstable, and dynamic systems, validated through simulations and laboratory experiments.

Contribution

It proposes a new nonlinear feedback law using lookahead simulation and Newton-Raphson, extending to unstable and time-varying systems, with preliminary theoretical analysis and experimental validation.

Findings

Effective tracking of constant and time-varying signals

Applicable to nonlinear and unstable systems

Validated through simulations and robot experiments

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to target tracking that is based on a variable-gain integrator and the Newton-Raphson method for finding zeros of a function. Its underscoring idea is the determination of the feedback law by measurements of the system's output and estimation of its future state via lookahead simulation. The resulting feedback law is generally nonlinear. We first apply the proposed approach to tracking a constant reference by the output of nonlinear memoryless plants. Then we extend it in a number of directions, including the tracking of time-varying reference signals by dynamic, possibly unstable systems. The approach is new hence its analysis is preliminary, and theoretical results are derived for nonlinear memoryless plants and linear dynamic plants. However, the setting for the controller does not require the plant-system to be either linear or stable, and this is verified by simulation of an inverted pendulum tracking a time-varying signal. We also demonstrate results of laboratory experiments of controlling a platoon of mobile robots.