Robust Control Co-Design with Receding-Horizon MPC

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust control co-design method integrating receding-horizon MPC within an iterative framework, enabling improved system performance and robustness against disturbances, demonstrated on an aircraft thermal management system.

Contribution

It presents a novel CCD algorithm that embeds robust MPC, addressing the challenge of closed-form solutions and enabling adaptive, disturbance-resilient control design.

Findings

Close match to open-loop benchmark in plant design

Enhanced robustness to disturbances during online operation

Effective integration of robust MPC within CCD framework

Abstract

Control co-design (CCD) is a technique for improving the closed-loop performance of systems through the coordinated design of both plant parameters and an optimal control policy. While model predictive control (MPC) is an attractive control strategy for many systems, embedding it within a CCD algorithm presents challenges because obtaining a closed-form solution for this receding-horizon optimization strategy is often not feasible. This paper meets that challenge by including a robust MPC formulation within the inner loop of a CCD algorithm. As exemplified by application to an aircraft thermal management system, the proposed algorithm closely matches the plant design of an open-loop benchmark. However, unlike the open-loop approach, the proposed algorithm can leverage MPC control variables designed a priori to achieve robust online operation under disturbance profiles that differ from those used for design.