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Results for “Robust stability”

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.

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At least 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

Robust integrated flight/propulsion control design for a STOVL aircraft using H-infinity control design techniques

Results are presented from an application of H-infinity control design methodology to a centralized integrated flight/propulsion control (IFPC) system design for a supersonic STOVL fighter aircraft in transition flight. The emphasis is on formulating the H-infinity optimal control synthesis problem such that the critical requirements for the flight and propulsion systems are adequately reflected within the linear, centralized control problem formulation and the resulting controller provides robustness to modeling uncertainties and model parameter variations with flight condition. Detailed evaluation results are presented for a reduced order controller obtained from the improved H-infinity control design showing that the control design meets the specified nominal performance objective as well as provides stability robustness for variations in plant system dynamics with changes in aircraft trim speed within the transition flight envelope.

Garg, Sanjay↗
NASA NTRS1991

Integrated flight/propulsion control design for a STOVL aircraft using H-infinity control design techniques

Results are presented from an application of H-infinity control design methodology to a centralized integrated flight propulsion control (IFPC) system design for a supersonic Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) fighter aircraft in transition flight. The emphasis is on formulating the H-infinity control design problem such that the resulting controller provides robustness to modeling uncertainties and model parameter variations with flight condition. Experience gained from a preliminary H-infinity based IFPC design study performed earlier is used as the basis to formulate the robust H-infinity control design problem and improve upon the previous design. Detailed evaluation results are presented for a reduced order controller obtained from the improved H-infinity control design showing that the control design meets the specified nominal performance objectives as well as provides stability robustness for variations in plant system dynamics with changes in aircraft trim speed within the transition flight envelope. A controller scheduling technique which accounts for changes in plant control effectiveness with variation in trim conditions is developed and off design model performance results are presented.

Garg, Sanjay↗
NASA NTRS1993

Average-cost based robust structural control

A method is presented for the synthesis of robust controllers for linear time invariant structural systems with parameterized uncertainty. The method involves minimizing quantities related to the quadratic cost (H2-norm) averaged over a set of systems described by real parameters such as natural frequencies and modal residues. Bounded average cost is shown to imply stability over the set of systems. Approximations for the exact average are derived and proposed as cost functionals. The properties of these approximate average cost functionals are established. The exact average and approximate average cost functionals are used to derive dynamic controllers which can provide stability robustness. The robustness properties of these controllers are demonstrated in illustrative numerical examples and tested in a simple SISO experiment on the MIT multi-point alignment testbed.

Hagood, Nesbitt W.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Stabilizing alkaline fuel cells with a niobium-doped brookite titanium dioxide catalyst support

Anion-exchange membrane fuel cells represent a promising and scalable approach for hydrogen energy utilization. However, their development is hindered by the weak bonding between metal catalysts and carbon supports, along with challenges in fabricating electronically/ionically conductive electrodes. Here, we report a composite cathode of Nb-doped brookite TiO 2 nanorods that have robust stability when combined with Pt nanoscale catalysts in an alkaline fuel cell. The composite cathode, fabricated without the addition of an ionomer, delivers a power density of 419 mW cm −2 at a current density of 650 mA cm −2 and a voltage retention of 81% at 100 mA cm −2 after 25 h, substantially outperforming a cathode fabricated from commercial Pt/C. Further investigations of the chemical structure, anion exchange capacity, and mass transfer resistance reveal that a solvent residue derived from N-methylpyrrolidone plays an important role in charge transfer and mass transport in the alkaline fuel cell.

alkaline fuel cell↗
DOE OSTI2026

Cyclic olefin copolymer-based reinforced anion exchange membranes for water electrolyzers

Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) have emerged as a promising technology for water electrolysis in hydrogen production since they offer significant cost reduction in choices of electrocatalysts and bipolar plates. However, AEMs satisfying multiple requirements of high ionic conductivity, good chemical stability, robust mechanical properties, scalable synthesis, and low manufacturing costs are rare. Herein, we introduce quaternary ammonium functionalized cyclic olefin copolymers (COCs) as a new class of chemically stable and low-cost AEM materials. To further enhance the mechanical robustness, we prepared reinforced composite AEMs by impregnating the ionically functionalized COC into a mechanically robust matrix. The resulting reinforced composite membrane exhibits a high hydroxide conductivity of 127 mS cm −1 and excellent mechanical strength. In water electrolyzers, the MEA demonstrated outstanding performance, achieving a current density of 2.24 A cm −2 at 1.8 V, attributable to high conductivity, enhanced mechanical properties, and good alkaline stability of the composite membrane. These results indicate that the COC-based AEMs demonstrate good potential for application in AEM electrolyzers.

08 HYDROGEN↗
NASA NTRS1977

Robustness of linear quadratic state feedback designs in the presence of system uncertainty

The paper deals with the problem of expressing the robustness (stability) property of a linear quadratic state feedback (LQSF) design quantitatively in terms of bounds on the perturbations (modeling errors or parameter variations) in the system matrices so that the closed-loop system remains stable. Nonlinear time-varying and linear time-invariant perturbations are considered. The only computation required in obtaining a measure of the robustness of an LQSF design is to determine the eigenvalues of two symmetric matrices determined when solving the algebraic Riccati equation corresponding to the LQSF design problem. Results are applied to a complex dynamic system consisting of the flare control of a STOL aircraft. The design of the flare control is formulated as an LQSF tracking problem.

Patel, R. V.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Eigenstructure assignment for the control of highly augmented aircraft

Eigenstructure assignment is utilized to design flight control laws for aircraft with many control effectors. It is shown that a previous eigenstructure design for the flight propulsion control coupling (FPCC) aircraft lateral dynamics with three control surfaces exhibits a lack of stability robustness because the control distribution matrix is nearly rank-deficient. A method is mapped back, reducing the control space to two dimensions by using the singular value decomposition. After the design is complete, the controller is mapped back to the original three-dimensional control space. This design approach yields a controller with both smaller gains and improved multivariable stability margins at the aircraft inputs. An interesting characteristics of the control mapping, as applied to the given example, is that the most effective inputs have the larger gains while the less effective inputs have smaller gains.

Sobel, Kenneth M.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Gaussian Process Enhancement to Linear Parameter Varying Models

Simulation and analysis for modern engineering systems now routinely requires the merging of multiple disciplines, physical-domains, time-scales, and data sets — all at ever increasing levels. These capabilities are especially needed in the domain of Advanced Air Mobility, where rapidly emerging vehicle designs are significantly more complex, while having to be both cost-effective and safe. To meet these engineering challenges, machine learning methods are an attractive option for merging models and data across multiple areas while providing uncertainty quantification and maintaining computational efficiency. This paper examines the use of Gaussian process machine learning to generalize and enhance the commonly used class of quasi-Linear Parameter Varying models for fast full-envelope simulation while also supporting control system design and analysis with model uncertainty. Gaussian process machine learning is selected because it: can fuse multiple data sets, enables an easy trade-off between data fitting and smoothing, provides model uncertainty quantification, scales well with increasing complexity, and does not generally require starting from a large training data set. To demonstrate the benefits of the approach, a robust stability analysis with Gaussian process uncertainty is shown for a NASA reference design of an electric quad-rotor air-taxi concept vehicle with motor parameter uncertainty.

Gaussian Process↗
NASA NTRS2000

X-33 Ascent Flight Controller Design by Trajectory Linearization: A Singular Perturbational Approach

The flight control of X-33 poses a challenge to conventional gain-scheduled flight controllers due to its large attitude maneuvers from liftoff to orbit and reentry. In addition, a wide range of uncertainties in vehicle handling qualities and disturbances must be accommodated by the attitude control system. Nonlinear tracking and decoupling control by trajectory linearization can be viewed as the ideal gain-scheduling controller designed at every point on the flight trajectory. Therefore it provides robust stability and performance at all stages of flight without interpolation of controller gains and eliminates costly controller redesigns due to minor airframe alteration or mission reconfiguration. In this paper, a prototype trajectory linearization design for an X-33 ascent flight controller is presented along with 3-DOF and 6-DOF simulation results. It is noted that the 6-DOF results were obtained from the 3-DOF design with only a few hours of tuning, which demonstrates the inherent robustness of the design technique. It is this "plug-and-play" feature that is much needed by NASA for the development, test and routine operations of the RLV'S. Plans for further research are also presented, and refined 6-DOF simulation results will be presented in the final version of the paper.

Zhu, J. Jim↗
NASA NTRS1999

X-33 Ascent Flight Controller Design by Trajectory Linearization: A Singular Perturbational Approach

The flight control of X-33 poses a challenge to conventional gain-scheduled flight controllers due to its large attitude maneuvers from liftoff to orbit and reentry. In addition, a wide range of uncertainties in vehicle handling qualities and disturbances must be accommodated by the attitude control system. Nonlinear tracking and decoupling control by trajectory linearization can be viewed as the ideal gain-scheduling controller designed at every point on the flight trajectory. Therefore it provides robust stability and performance at all stages of flight without interpolation of controller gains, and eliminates costly controller redesigns due to minor airframe alteration or mission reconfiguration. A prototype trajectory linearization design for X-33 ascent flight controller was designed and tested with 3-DOF and 6-DOF simulations during the 10 weeks SFFP. It is noted that the 6-DOF results were obtained from the 3-DOF design with only a few hours of tuning, which demonstrates the inherent robustness of the design technique. It is this "plug-and-play" feature that is much needed by NASA for the development, test and routine operations of the RLVs. Plans for further research are also presented.

Zhu, J. Jim↗
NASA NTRS2009

Robust Optimal Adaptive Control Method with Large Adaptive Gain

In the presence of large uncertainties, a control system needs to be able to adapt rapidly to regain performance. Fast adaptation is referred to the implementation of adaptive control with a large adaptive gain to reduce the tracking error rapidly. However, a large adaptive gain can lead to high-frequency oscillations which can adversely affect robustness of an adaptive control law. A new adaptive control modification is presented that can achieve robust adaptation with a large adaptive gain without incurring high-frequency oscillations as with the standard model-reference adaptive control. The modification is based on the minimization of the Y2 norm of the tracking error, which is formulated as an optimal control problem. The optimality condition is used to derive the modification using the gradient method. The optimal control modification results in a stable adaptation and allows a large adaptive gain to be used for better tracking while providing sufficient stability robustness. Simulations were conducted for a damaged generic transport aircraft with both standard adaptive control and the adaptive optimal control modification technique. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modification in tracking a reference model while maintaining a sufficient time delay margin.

Nguyen, Nhan T.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Stability analysis of position and force control problems for robot arms

A stability analysis for robot manipulators under the influence of external forces is presented. Several control objectives are considered: rejecting the external force as a source of disturbance, complying to the external force as a generalized mass-spring-damper system, and actively controlling the external force when a dynamic model for the environment is available. An explanation of instability is given for the case in which the environment has flexibility and the gains are inappropriately chosen. When the environment is stiff in the force control subspace, robust stability can be achieved via the integral force feedback.

Wen, John T.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Multifunction tests of a frequency domain based flutter suppression system

The process is described of analysis, design, digital implementation, and subsonic testing of an active control flutter suppression system for a full span, free-to-roll wind tunnel model of an advanced fighter concept. The design technique uses a frequency domain representation of the plant and used optimization techniques to generate a robust multi input/multi output controller. During testing in a fixed-in-roll configuration, simultaneous suppression of both symmetric and antisymmetric flutter was successfully shown. For a free-to-roll configuration, symmetric flutter was suppressed to the limit of the tunnel test envelope. During aggressive rolling maneuvers above the open-loop flutter boundary, simultaneous flutter suppression and maneuver load control were demonstrated. Finally, the flutter damping controller was reoptimized overnight during the test using combined experimental and analytical frequency domain data, resulting in improved stability robustness.

Christhilf, David M.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Multifunction tests of a frequency domain based flutter suppression system

This paper describes the process of analysis, design, digital implementation and subsonic testing of an active controls flutter suppression system for a full span, free-to-roll wind-tunnel model of an advanced fighter concept. The design technique employed a frequency domain representation of the plant and used optimization techniques to generate a robust multi-input/multi-output controller. During testing in a fixed-in-roll configuration, simultaneous suppression of both symmetric and antisymmetric flutter was successfully demonstrated. For a free-to-roll configuration, symmetric flutter was suppressed to the limit of the tunnel test envelope. During aggressive rolling maneuvers above the open-loop flutter boundary, simultaneous flutter suppression and maneuver load control were demonstrated. Finally, the flutter suppression controller was reoptimized overnight during the test using combined experimental and analytical frequency domain data, resulting in improved stability robustness.

Christhilf, David M.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Robust control of systems with real parameter uncertainty and unmodelled dynamics

During this research period we have made significant progress in the four proposed areas: (1) design of robust controllers via H infinity optimization; (2) design of robust controllers via mixed H2/H infinity optimization; (3) M-delta structure and robust stability analysis for structured uncertainties; and (4) a study on controllability and observability of perturbed plant. It is well known now that the two-Riccati-equation solution to the H infinity control problem can be used to characterize all possible stabilizing optimal or suboptimal H infinity controllers if the optimal H infinity norm or gamma, an upper bound of a suboptimal H infinity norm, is given. In this research, we discovered some useful properties of these H infinity Riccati solutions. Among them, the most prominent one is that the spectral radius of the product of these two Riccati solutions is a continuous, nonincreasing, convex function of gamma in the domain of interest. Based on these properties, quadratically convergent algorithms are developed to compute the optimal H infinity norm. We also set up a detailed procedure for applying the H infinity theory to robust control systems design. The desire to design controllers with H infinity robustness but H(exp 2) performance has recently resulted in mixed H(exp 2) and H infinity control problem formulation. The mixed H(exp 2)/H infinity problem have drawn the attention of many investigators. However, solution is only available for special cases of this problem. We formulated a relatively realistic control problem with H(exp 2) performance index and H infinity robustness constraint into a more general mixed H(exp 2)/H infinity problem. No optimal solution yet is available for this more general mixed H(exp 2)/H infinity problem. Although the optimal solution for this mixed H(exp 2)/H infinity control has not yet been found, we proposed a design approach which can be used through proper choice of the available design parameters to influence both robustness and performance. For a large class of linear time-invariant systems with real parametric perturbations, the coefficient vector of the characteristic polynomial is a multilinear function of the real parameter vector. Based on this multilinear mapping relationship together with the recent developments for polytopic polynomials and parameter domain partition technique, we proposed an iterative algorithm for coupling the real structured singular value.

Chang, Bor-Chin↗
DOE OSTI2023

Regulating Gas Transport in Molecularly Engineered Polymer Membranes (Final Technical Report)

Energy-efficient separation processes are essential for a wide range of applications ranging from clean fuels (e.g., hydrogen purification) and petroleum refining (e.g., natural gas processing) to water purification and carbon capture. Membrane-mediated separations have shown tremendous promise in providing high productivity and high separation efficiency at significantly lower energy consumption, e.g., up to 90% less energy cost than traditional thermally driven processes such as distillation. Polymeric membranes–the dominant separation membrane materials–have yet to reach their full potential due to their limitations in long-term durability (e.g., productivity loss over the period of their lifetime due to physical aging) or insufficient stability under harsh conditions (e.g., high temperature, chemically complex feeds). This research seeks to establish a new paradigm in polymer membrane material design by harnessing crosslinked model networks with well-defined yet finely tailorable microstructure to facilitate fast and selective gas transport and simultaneously enhance membrane stability. Unlike traditional randomly crosslinked polymers, which suffer from structural inconsistencies and consequently suboptimal gas separation performance, crosslinked model network membranes prepared via a precisely controlled end-linking process enables the creation of previously unattainable microstructure tunability, which, in turn, results in versatile crosslinked membranes with high separation performance that meet the needs of various challenging gas separations. Using model network framework as a fundamental tool by applying this concept in diverse polymer categories, this work has led to the development of various innovative crosslinked membrane structures such as unimodal, bimodal and clustered model networks. These advanced crosslinked polymer membranes not only demonstrate exceptional gas separation performance that significantly outperform existing randomly crosslinked membranes, but also possess excellent long-term durability and robust stability under complex operating conditions. From a fundamental perspective, results from this research provide critical mechanistic insights into gas separation in crosslinked polymer membranes, addressing key knowledge gaps and opening new avenues for membrane design to meet various separation needs. The new membrane materials produced from this research enable the use of polymeric membranes for high temperature gas separations, offering substantial energy and cost savings by eliminating the need for repeated cooling-heating cycles in industrial processes.

02 PETROLEUM↗
NASA NTRS2014

Space Launch System Implementation of Adaptive Augmenting Control

Given the complex structural dynamics, challenging ascent performance requirements, and rigorous flight certification constraints owing to its manned capability, the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) launch vehicle requires a proven thrust vector control algorithm design with highly optimized parameters to provide stable and high-performance flight. On its development path to Preliminary Design Review (PDR), the SLS flight control system has been challenged by significant vehicle flexibility, aerodynamics, and sloshing propellant. While the design has been able to meet all robust stability criteria, it has done so with little excess margin. Through significant development work, an Adaptive Augmenting Control (AAC) algorithm has been shown to extend the envelope of failures and flight anomalies the SLS control system can accommodate while maintaining a direct link to flight control stability criteria such as classical gain and phase margin. In this paper, the work performed to mature the AAC algorithm as a baseline component of the SLS flight control system is presented. The progress to date has brought the algorithm design to the PDR level of maturity. The algorithm has been extended to augment the full SLS digital 3-axis autopilot, including existing load-relief elements, and the necessary steps for integration with the production flight software prototype have been implemented. Several updates which have been made to the adaptive algorithm to increase its performance, decrease its sensitivity to expected external commands, and safeguard against limitations in the digital implementation are discussed with illustrating results. Monte Carlo simulations and selected stressing case results are also shown to demonstrate the algorithm's ability to increase the robustness of the integrated SLS flight control system.

Wall, John H.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Anisotropic 2D van der Waals Magnets Hosting 1D Spin Chains

Abstract The exploration of 1D magnetism, frequently portrayed as spin chains, constitutes an actively pursued research field that illuminates fundamental principles in many‐body problems and applications in magnonics and spintronics. The inherent reduction in dimensionality often leads to robust spin fluctuations, impacting magnetic ordering and resulting in novel magnetic phenomena. Here, structural, magnetic, and optical properties of highly anisotropic 2D van der Waals antiferromagnets that uniquely host spin chains are explored. First‐principle calculations reveal that the weakest interaction is interchain, leading to essentially 1D magnetic behavior in each layer. With the additional degree of freedom arising from its anisotropic structure, the structure is engineered by alloying, varying the 1D spin chain lengths using electron beam irradiation, or twisting for localized patterning, and spin textures are calculated, predicting robust stability of the antiferromagnetic ordering. Comparing with other spin chain magnets, these materials are anticipated to bring fresh perspectives on harvesting low‐dimensional magnetism.

1D magnetism↗