Characterization and computation of control invariant sets within target regions for linear impulsive control systems

TL;DR

This paper develops a novel approach to characterize and compute control invariant sets for linear impulsive systems within target regions, enabling effective zone tracking with a set-based model predictive controller.

Contribution

It introduces a non-conservative, polynomial positivity-based method for exact and approximate invariant set computation tailored to impulsive systems with rational eigenvalues.

Findings

Explicit impulsive invariant sets enable zone tracking.

Proposed MPC ensures asymptotic convergence within target zones.

Method applicable to systems with rational eigenvalues.

Abstract

Linear impulsively controlled systems are suitable to describe a venue of real-life problems, going from disease treatment to aerospace guidance. The main characteristic of such systems is that they remain uncontrolled for certain periods of time. As a consequence, punctual equilibria characterizations outside the origin are no longer useful, and the whole concept of equilibrium and its natural extension, the controlled invariant sets, needs to be redefined. Also, an exact characterization of the admissible states, i.e., states such that their uncontrolled evolution between impulse times remain within a predefined set, is required. An approach to such tasks -- based on the Markov-Lukasz theorem -- is presented, providing a tractable and non-conservative characterization, emerging from polynomial positivity that has application to systems with rational eigenvalues. This is in turn the basis for obtaining a tractable approximation to the maximal admissible invariant sets. In this work, it is also demonstrated that, in order for the problem to have a solution, an invariant set (and moreover, an equilibrium set) must be contained within the target zone. To assess the proposal, the so-obtained impulsive invariant set is explicitly used in the formulation of a set-based model predictive controller, with application to zone tracking. In this context, specific MPC theory needs to be considered, as the target is not necessarily stable in the sense of Lyapunov. A zone MPC formulation is proposed, which is able to i) track an invariant set such that the uncontrolled propagation fulfills the zone constraint at all times and ii) converge asymptotically to the set of periodic orbits completely contained within the target zone.