Stabilization of physical systems via saturated controllers with only partial state measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces a passivity-based control method for nonlinear systems with input saturation, requiring only partial state measurements, and validated through simulations and experiments across various physical systems.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel passivity-based control approach that avoids solving PDEs and does not require passive output measurements, applicable to diverse physical systems.

Findings

Effective control of nonlinear systems demonstrated

No PDEs needed for energy shaping

Validated through simulations and experiments

Abstract

This paper provides a constructive passivity-based control approach to solve the set-point regulation problem for input-affine continuous nonlinear systems while considering saturation in the inputs. As customarily in passivity-based control, the methodology consists of two steps: energy shaping and damping injection. In terms of applicability, the proposed controllers have two advantages concerning other passivity-based control techniques: (i) the energy shaping is carried out without solving partial differential equations, and (ii) the damping injection is performed without measuring the passive output. The proposed methodology is suitable to control a broad range of physical systems, e.g., mechanical, electrical, and electro-mechanical systems. We illustrate the applicability of the technique by designing controllers for systems in different physical domains, where we validate the analytical results via simulations and experiments.