Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “robust control”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 865 records · Page 48
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Epistemology of voltage control in DER-rich power system

Despite the recent development of several scalable, robust, and resilient control approaches with superior convergence properties considering an increasing penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs), cognitive oversights often simplify several aspects of the cyber–physical power system in the controller development. Here, following the identification of the limitations of classical controller definitions, we justify alternative definitions of voltage control approaches classifiers considering three inter-disciplinary domains: (i) power system, (ii) optimization and decision-making, and (iii) networking and cyber-security, to develop a taxonomy for helping in real-world comparative performance analysis and deployability of these controllers. We observe that classical and introduced domain-based definitions together can better classify the control algorithms.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS2006

A High-Authority/Low-Authority Control Strategy for Coupled Aircraft-Style Bays

This paper presents a numerical investigation of an active structural acoustic control strategy for coupled aircraft-style bays. While structural coupling can destabilize or limit the performance of some model-based decentralized control systems, fullycoupled centralized control strategies are impractical for typical aircraft containing several hundred bays. An alternative is to use classical rate feedback with matched, collocated transducer pairs to achieve active damping. Unfortunately, due to the conservative nature of this strategy, stability is guaranteed at the expense of achievable noise reduction. Therefore, this paper describes the development of a combined control strategy using robust active damping in addition to a high-authority controller based on linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) theory. The combined control system is evaluated on a tensioned, two-bay model using piezoceramic actuators and ideal point velocity sensors. Transducer placement on the two-bay structure is discussed, and the advantages of a combined control strategy are presented.

Schiller, N. H.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Decentralized Control of Sound Radiation using a High-Authority/Low-Authority Control Strategy with Anisotropic Actuators

This paper describes a combined control strategy designed to reduce sound radiation from stiffened aircraft-style panels. The control architecture uses robust active damping in addition to high-authority linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control. Active damping is achieved using direct velocity feedback with triangularly shaped anisotropic actuators and point velocity sensors. While active damping is simple and robust, stability is guaranteed at the expense of performance. Therefore the approach is often referred to as low-authority control. In contrast, LQG control strategies can achieve substantial reductions in sound radiation. Unfortunately, the unmodeled interaction between neighboring control units can destabilize decentralized control systems. Numerical simulations show that combining active damping and decentralized LQG control can be beneficial. In particular, augmenting the in-bandwidth damping supplements the performance of the LQG control strategy and reduces the destabilizing interaction between neighboring control units.

Schiller, Noah H.↗
DOE OSTI2014

The beauty of simple adaptive control and new developments in nonlinear systems stability analysis

Although various adaptive control techniques have been around for a long time and in spite of successful proofs of stability and even successful demonstrations of performance, the eventual use of adaptive control methodologies in practical real world systems has met a rather strong resistance from practitioners and has remained limited. Apparently, it is difficult to guarantee or even understand the conditions that can guarantee stable operations of adaptive control systems under realistic operational environments. Besides, it is difficult to measure the robustness of adaptive control system stability and allow it to be compared with the common and widely used measure of phase margin and gain margin that is utilized by present, mainly LTI, controllers. Furthermore, customary stability analysis methods seem to imply that the mere stability of adaptive systems may be adversely affected by any tiny deviation from the pretty idealistic and assumably required stability conditions. This paper first revisits the fundamental qualities of customary direct adaptive control methodologies, in particular the classical Model Reference Adaptive Control, and shows that some of their basic drawbacks have been addressed and eliminated within the so-called Simple Adaptive Control methodology. Moreover, recent developments in the stability analysis methods of nonlinear systems show that prior conditions that were customarily assumed to be needed for stability are only apparent and can be eliminated. As a result, sufficient conditions that guarantee stability are clearly stated and lead to similarly clear proofs of stability. As many real-world applications show, once robust stability of the adaptive systems can be guaranteed, the added value of using Add-On Adaptive Control along with classical Control design techniques is pushing the desired performance beyond any previous limits.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
NASA NTRS1992

Damage-mitigating control of aerospace systems for high performance and extended life

The concept of damage-mitigating control is to minimize fatigue (as well as creep and corrosion) damage of critical components of mechanical structures while simultaneously maximizing the system dynamic performance. Given a dynamic model of the plant and the specifications for performance and stability robustness, the task is to synthesize a control law that would meet the system requirements and, at the same time, satisfy the constraints that are imposed by the material and structural properties of the critical components. The authors present the concept of damage-mitigating control systems design with the following objectives: (1) to achieve high performance with a prolonged life span; and (2) to systematically update the controller as the new technology of advanced materials evolves. The major challenge is to extract the information from the material properties and then utilize this information in a mathematical form so that it can be directly applied to robust control synthesis for mechanical systems. The basic concept of damage-mitigating control is illustrated using a relatively simplified model of a space shuttle main engine.

Ray, Asok↗
NASA NTRS1983

Restructurable Controls

Restructurable control system theory, robust reconfiguration for high reliability and survivability for advanced aircraft, restructurable controls problem definition and research, experimentation, system identification methods applied to aircraft, a self-repairing digital flight control system, and state-of-the-art theory application are addressed.

R. J. Montoya↗
NASA NTRS1992

An advanced teleoperator control system - Design and evaluation

The design goal of an advanced teleoperator control system is twofold: 1) to allow the operator's manual control to be robust to system nonlinearities such as time delays and operator's control errors, and 2) to support the high performance of teleoperation while reducing the operator's control burden by providing the master and slave arms with desirable dynamic properties and by allowing the slave arm to automatically perform such control tasks as compliance and force control in the form of task sharing. The authors present a novel teleoperator control system achieving the above design goal by taking the following into consideration: the human dynamics involved in generating control command based on visual and forced feedback is modeled and incorporated into the controller design and evaluation; the dynamic characteristics of slave and master arms are actively modified in such a way as to implement the desirable dynamic characteristics; and the force feedback is redefined in terms of the combination of opposition and force discrepancies in order to establish the required man/machine dynamic coordination under shared control. The proposed control system with human dynamics in the control loop is simulated and compared with a number of conventional methods in the presence of human control errors and time delays.

Lee, Sukhan↗
NASA NTRS2016

Satellite Communications for Unmanned Aircraft C2 Links: C-Band, Ku-Band and Ka-Band

Unmanned aircraft (UA) that require access to controlled (or non-segregated) airspace require a highly reliable and robust command and control (C2) link, operating over protected aviation spectrum. While operating within radio line-of-sight (LOS) UA can make use of air-to-ground C2 links to terrestrial stations. When operating beyond LOS (BLOS) where a group of networked terrestrial stations does not exist to provide effective BLOS coverage, a satellite communications link is required. Protected aviation spectrum for satellite C2 links has only recently been allocated in bands where operational satellites exist. A previously existing C-Band allocation covers a bands where there are currently no operational satellites. The new allocations, within the Fixed Satellite Service bands at Ku and Ka-Bands will not be finalized until 2023 due to the need for the development of standards and technical decisions on the operation of UA satellite C2 links within these bands. This paper provides an overview of BLOS satellite C2 links, some of the conditions which will need to be met for the operation of such links, and a look at some aspects of spectrum sharing which may constrain these operations.

radiofrequency spectrum↗
NASA NTRS1989

Multivariable frequency weighted model order reduction for control synthesis

Quantitative criteria are presented for model simplification, or order reduction, such that the reduced order model may be used to synthesize and evaluate a control law, and the stability robustness obtained using the reduced order model will be preserved when controlling the full-order system. The error introduced due to model simplification is treated as modeling uncertainty, and some of the results from multivariate robustness theory are brought to bear on the model simplification problem. A numerical procedure developed previously is shown to lead to results that meet the necessary criteria. The procedure is applied to reduce the model of a flexible aircraft. Also, the importance of the control law itself, in meeting the modeling criteria, is underscored. An example is included that demonstrates that an apparently robust control law actually amplifies modest modeling errors in the critical frequency region, and leads to undesirable results. The cause of this problem is associated with the canceling of lightly damped transmission zeroes in the plant. An attempt is made to expand on some of the earlier results and to further clarify the theoretical basis behind the proposed methodology.

Schmidt, David K.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Design, test, and evaluation of three active flutter suppression controllers

Three control law design techniques for flutter suppression are presented. Each technique uses multiple control surfaces and/or sensors. The first method uses traditional tools (such as pole/zero loci and Nyquist diagrams) for producing a controller that has minimal complexity and which is sufficiently robust to handle plant uncertainty. The second procedure uses linear combinations of several accelerometer signals and dynamic compensation to synthesize the model rate of the critical mode for feedback to the distributed control surfaces. The third technique starts with a minimum-energy linear quadratic Gaussian controller, iteratively modifies intensity matrices corresponding to input and output noise, and applies controller order reduction to achieve a low-order, robust controller. The resulting designs were implemented digitally and tested subsonically on the active flexible wing wind-tunnel model in the Langley Transonic Dynamics Tunnel. Only the traditional pole/zero loci design was sufficiently robust to errors in the nominal plant to successfully suppress flutter during the test. The traditional pole/zero loci design provided simultaneous suppression of symmetric and antisymmetric flutter with a 24-percent increase in attainable dynamic pressure. Posttest analyses are shown which illustrate the problems encountered with the other laws.

Adams, William M., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Guidance and Control Architecture Design and Demonstration for Low Ballistic Coefficient Atmospheric Entry

We propose to develop a robust guidance and control system for the ADEPT (Adaptable Deployable Entry and Placement Technology) entry vehicle. A control-centric model of ADEPT will be developed to quantify the performance of candidate guidance and control architectures for both aerocapture and precision landing missions. The evaluation will be based on recent breakthroughs in constrained controllability/reachability analysis of control systems and constrained-based energy-minimum trajectory optimization for guidance development operating in complex environments.

Entry↗
NASA NTRS1992

A reliable algorithm for optimal control synthesis

In recent years, powerful design tools for linear time-invariant multivariable control systems have been developed based on direct parameter optimization. In this report, an algorithm for reliable optimal control synthesis using parameter optimization is presented. Specifically, a robust numerical algorithm is developed for the evaluation of the H(sup 2)-like cost functional and its gradients with respect to the controller design parameters. The method is specifically designed to handle defective degenerate systems and is based on the well-known Pade series approximation of the matrix exponential. Numerical test problems in control synthesis for simple mechanical systems and for a flexible structure with densely packed modes illustrate positively the reliability of this method when compared to a method based on diagonalization. Several types of cost functions have been considered: a cost function for robust control consisting of a linear combination of quadratic objectives for deterministic and random disturbances, and one representing an upper bound on the quadratic objective for worst case initial conditions. Finally, a framework for multivariable control synthesis has been developed combining the concept of closed-loop transfer recovery with numerical parameter optimization. The procedure enables designers to synthesize not only observer-based controllers but also controllers of arbitrary order and structure. Numerical design solutions rely heavily on the robust algorithm due to the high order of the synthesis model and the presence of near-overlapping modes. The design approach is successfully applied to the design of a high-bandwidth control system for a rotorcraft.

Vansteenwyk, Brett↗
DOE OSTI2021

Transformation of Highly Stable Pt Single Sites on Defect Engineered Ceria into Robust Pt Clusters for Vehicle Emission Control

Engineering surface defects on metal oxide supports could help promote the dispersion of active sites and catalytic performance of supported catalysts. Herein, a strategy of ZrO 2 doping was proposed to create rich surface defects on CeO 2 (CZO) and, with these defects, to improve Pt dispersion and enhance its affinity as single sites to the CZO support (Pt/CZO). The strongly anchored Pt single sites on CZO support were initially not efficient for catalytic oxidation of CO/C 3 H 6 . However, after a simple activation by H 2 reduction, the catalytic oxidation performance over Pt/CZO catalyst was significantly boosted and better than Pt/CeO 2 . Pt/CZO catalyst also exhibited much higher thermal stability. The structural evolution of Pt active sites by H 2 treatment was systematically investigated on aged Pt/CZO and Pt/CeO 2 catalysts. With H 2 reduction, ionic Pt single sites were transformed into active Pt clusters. Much smaller Pt clusters were created on CZO (ca. 1.2 nm) than on CeO 2 (ca. 1.8 nm) due to stronger Pt-CeO 2 interaction on aged Pt/CZO. Consequently, more exposed active Pt sites were obtained on the smaller clusters surrounded by more oxygen defects and Ce 3+ species, which directly translated to the higher catalytic oxidation performance of activated Pt/CZO catalyst in vehicle emission control applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Circuit QED Pulse Control Interface

The Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics (Circuit QED) Pulse Control Interface provides a robust platform for designing and testing control signals in transmon-cavity systems. Utilizing a PyQt5-based drag-and-drop GUI, this tool facilitates the implementation of two key protocols: Selective Number-dependent Arbitrary Phase (SNAP)-Displacement and Echoed Conditional Displacement (ECD). It offers real-time pulse visualization and supports CSV exports and imports for integrating custom signals, thereby enhancing circuit QED experimental workflows. Simulations performed using QuTiP confirm the high fidelity of quantum state preparations and the effectiveness of the implemented controls. Future developments will focus on interfacing the tool with hardware and enhancing signal generation accuracy.

Lin, Yuqing↗
NASA NTRS1983

Distributed control of large space antennas

A systematic way to choose control design parameters and to evaluate performance for large space antennas is presented. The structural dynamics and control properties for a Hoop and Column Antenna and a Wrap-Rib Antenna are characterized. Some results of the effects of model parameter uncertainties to the stability, surface accuracy, and pointing errors are presented. Critical dynamics and control problems for these antenna configurations are identified and potential solutions are discussed. It was concluded that structural uncertainties and model error can cause serious performance deterioration and can even destabilize the controllers. For the hoop and column antenna, large hoop and long meat and the lack of stiffness between the two substructures result in low structural frequencies. Performance can be improved if this design can be strengthened. The two-site control system is more robust than either single-site control systems for the hoop and column antenna.

Cameron, J. M.↗