Approximate Simulation-based Hierarchical Control of Nonlinear Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a constructive method for approximate simulation-based hierarchical control of nonlinear systems, extending existing linear system results to more complex dynamics.

Contribution

It proposes invariance equation-based techniques to address key ASHC requirements for nonlinear systems and provides a systematic design procedure.

Findings

Successfully applied to a DC-to-DC Cuk converter example.

Established conditions for the solvability of the nonlinear ASHC problem.

Provided a step-by-step solution framework for practical nonlinear control design.

Abstract

Controlling complex dynamical systems to satisfy sophisticated specifications remains a significant challenge in modern engineering. A promising approach to this problem is the approximate simulation-based hierarchical control (ASHC) technique. In this method, a simplified representation of the complex system, called the abstract system, is first designed and controlled. An interface function is then designed to translate the control law into the input of the complex system, thereby achieving approximate control synthesis. However, most existing results in ASHC are only for linear systems. This paper proposes a constructive method for solving the ASHC problem for nonlinear systems. To this end, we propose invariance equation-based methods to achieve the two classical requirements of the ASHC technique, namely the bounded output discrepancy and the $m$-relation. We then study the solvability conditions of the problem and summarise the overall design procedures. We illustrate the results with a practical example, providing step-by-step solutions to the ASHC problem of a DC-to-DC \'Cuk converter.