Approximate Simulation-based Hierarchical Control of Nonlinear Systems
This work addresses the problem of hierarchical control for nonlinear systems in engineering, which is incremental as it extends existing ASHC techniques from linear to nonlinear systems.
The paper tackles the challenge of controlling complex nonlinear systems to meet sophisticated specifications by proposing a constructive method for approximate simulation-based hierarchical control (ASHC) for nonlinear systems, achieving this through invariance equation-based methods to satisfy bounded output discrepancy and m-relation requirements, with results illustrated on a DC-to-DC Ćuk converter.
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 Ćuk converter.