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Actuators
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From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control
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From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control

A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825). This special issue belongs to the section "Control Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2025 | Viewed by 8570

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xuerui Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Interests: non-linear control; aerial robotics; aeroservoelasticity; morphing; reinforcement learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Erik-Jan Van Kampen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Interests: nonlinear control; interval analysis; global nonlinear optimization; knowledge-based control

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nonlinear incremental control is a branch of control methods that utilize a data-driven incremental model. It exploits sensor measurements online and can simultaneously reduce controller model dependency and robustness. The word incremental means the controllers are designed considering the variations of state, control, and control derivatives in one incremental time step. The first invented and most well-known incremental control method is the incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI). Both theoretical and practical research has shown superior robustness and easier implementation of INDI compared to its nonlinear dynamic inversion counterpart. Originating from INDI, various nonlinear incremental control methods have been developed in the past decade, including incremental backstepping, adaptive incremental control, incremental adaptive dynamic programming, etc. These nonlinear incremental control methods have also found their broad applications in various practical fields including, aerospace, robotics, and mechanical systems.

This Special Issue aims to welcome contributions to the theoretical and practical perspectives of incremental control, including but not limited to the following:

  • Stability analysis;
  • Robustness analysis;
  • Novel controller design based on an incremental model;
  • Novel applications of nonlinear incremental control.

Dr. Xuerui Wang
Dr. Erik-Jan Van Kampen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Actuators is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nonlinear control
  • incremental
  • robustness
  • data-driven

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 3401 KiB  
Article
Incremental Nonlinear Dynamics Inversion and Incremental Backstepping: Experimental Attitude Control of a Tail-Sitter UAV
by Alexandre Athayde, Alexandra Moutinho and José Raul Azinheira
Actuators 2024, 13(6), 225; https://doi.org/10.3390/act13060225 - 17 Jun 2024
Viewed by 837
Abstract
Incremental control strategies such as Incremental Nonlinear Dynamics Inversion (INDI) and Incremental Backstepping (IBKS) provide undeniable advantages for controlling Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) due to their reduced model dependency and accurate tracking capacities, which is of particular relevance for tail-sitters as these perform [...] Read more.
Incremental control strategies such as Incremental Nonlinear Dynamics Inversion (INDI) and Incremental Backstepping (IBKS) provide undeniable advantages for controlling Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) due to their reduced model dependency and accurate tracking capacities, which is of particular relevance for tail-sitters as these perform complex, hard to model manoeuvres when transitioning to and from aerodynamic flight. In this research article, a quaternion-based form of IBKS is originally deduced and applied to the stabilization of a tail-sitter in vertical flight, which is then implemented in a flight controller and validated in a Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation, which is also made for the INDI controller. Experimental validation with indoor flight tests of both INDI and IBKS controllers follows, evaluating their performance in stabilizing the tail-sitter prototype in vertical flight. Lastly, the tracking results obtained from the experimental trials are analysed, allowing an objective comparison to be drawn between these controllers, evaluating their respective advantages and limitations. From the successfully conducted flight tests, it was found that both incremental solutions are suited to control a tail-sitter in vertical flight, providing accurate tracking capabilities with smooth actuation, and only requiring the actuation model. Furthermore, it was found that the IBKS is significantly more computationally demanding than the INDI, although having a global proof of stability that is of interest in aircraft control. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control)
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18 pages, 8899 KiB  
Article
A Sparse Neural Network-Based Control Method for Saturated Nonlinear Affine Systems
by Jing Zhang, Baoqun Yin, Jianwen Huo, Hongliang Guo and Zhan Li
Actuators 2024, 13(6), 204; https://doi.org/10.3390/act13060204 - 29 May 2024
Viewed by 707
Abstract
Saturated nonlinear affine systems are widely encountered in many engineering fields. Currently, most control methods on saturated nonlinear affine systems are not specifically designed based on sparsity-based control methodologies, and they might require sparse identification at the beginning stage and applying tracking control [...] Read more.
Saturated nonlinear affine systems are widely encountered in many engineering fields. Currently, most control methods on saturated nonlinear affine systems are not specifically designed based on sparsity-based control methodologies, and they might require sparse identification at the beginning stage and applying tracking control afterwards. In this paper, a sparse neural network (SNN)-based control method from an lp-norm (1≤p<2) optimization perspective is proposed for saturated nonlinear affine systems by taking advantage of the nice properties of primal dual neural networks for optimization. In particular, when p=1, a new alternative controller based on SNN is derived, encountering computational difficulties distinct from those of another solution set in the basic dual neural network. The convergence properties of such SNN-based controllers are investigated and analyzed to find a control solution. Five illustrative examples further are shown to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed SNN-based control method for tracking the desired references of saturated nonlinear affine systems. In the practical application scenario involving the UR5 robot control, the trajectory’s average errors are consistently confined to a minimal magnitude of 10−4 m. These findings substantiate the efficacy of the SNN-based control approach proposed for precise tracking control in saturated nonlinear affine systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control)
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16 pages, 1811 KiB  
Article
A Novel Extended Unscented Kalman Filter Is Designed Using the Higher-Order Statistical Property of the Approximate Error of the System Model
by Chengyi Li and Chenglin Wen
Actuators 2024, 13(5), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/act13050169 - 1 May 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1134
Abstract
In the actual working environment, most equipment models present nonlinear characteristics. For nonlinear system filtering, filtering methods such as the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF), and Cubature Kalman Filter (CKF) have been developed successively, all of which show good results. [...] Read more.
In the actual working environment, most equipment models present nonlinear characteristics. For nonlinear system filtering, filtering methods such as the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF), and Cubature Kalman Filter (CKF) have been developed successively, all of which show good results. However, in the process of nonlinear system filtering, the performance of EKF decreases with an increase in the truncation error and even diverges. With improvement of the system dimension, the sampling points of UKF are relatively few and unrepresentative. In this paper, a novel high-order extended Unscented Kalman Filter (HUKF) based on an Unscented Kalman Filter is designed using the higher-order statistical properties of the approximate error. In addition, a method for calculating the approximate error of the multi-level approximation of the original function under the condition that the measurement is not rank-satisfied is proposed. The effectiveness of the filter is verified using digital simulation experiments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control)
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33 pages, 6190 KiB  
Article
Practical System Identification and Incremental Control Design for a Subscale Fixed-Wing Aircraft
by Rasmus Steffensen, Kilian Ginnell and Florian Holzapfel
Actuators 2024, 13(4), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/act13040130 - 4 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1844
Abstract
An incremental differential proportional integral (iDPI) control law using eigenstructure assignment gain design is tested in flight on a subscale platform to validate its suitability for fixed-wing flight control. A kinematic relation for the aerodynamic side-slip angle rate is developed to apply a [...] Read more.
An incremental differential proportional integral (iDPI) control law using eigenstructure assignment gain design is tested in flight on a subscale platform to validate its suitability for fixed-wing flight control. A kinematic relation for the aerodynamic side-slip angle rate is developed to apply a pseudo full state feedback. In order to perform the gain design and assessment, a plant model is estimated using flight test data from gyro, accelerometer, airspeed and surface deflection measurements during sine-sweep excitations. Transfer function models for the actuators and surface deflections are identified both in-flight and on the ground for several different actuators and control surfaces using hall sensor surface deflection measurements. The analysis reveals a large variation in bandwidth between the different types of servo motors. Flight test results are presented which demonstrates that the plant model estimates based on tests with good frequency excitation, high bandwidth actuators and surface deflection measurements can be used to reasonably predict the closed-loop dynamic behavior of the aircraft. The closed-loop flight test results of the iDPi control law show good performance and lays the groundwork for further development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control)
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16 pages, 2115 KiB  
Article
Incremental Nonlinear Control for Aeroelastic Wing Load Alleviation and Flutter Suppression
by Roderick Schildkamp, Jing Chang, Jurij Sodja, Roeland De Breuker and Xuerui Wang
Actuators 2023, 12(7), 280; https://doi.org/10.3390/act12070280 - 9 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2788
Abstract
This paper proposes an incremental nonlinear control method for an aeroelastic system’s gust load alleviation and active flutter suppression. These two control objectives can be achieved without modifying the control architecture or the control parameters. The proposed method has guaranteed stability in the [...] Read more.
This paper proposes an incremental nonlinear control method for an aeroelastic system’s gust load alleviation and active flutter suppression. These two control objectives can be achieved without modifying the control architecture or the control parameters. The proposed method has guaranteed stability in the Lyapunov sense and also has robustness against external disturbances and model mismatches. The effectiveness of this control method is validated by wind tunnel tests of an active aeroelastic parametric wing apparatus, which is a typical wing section containing heave, pitch, flap, and spoiler degrees of freedom. Wind tunnel experiment results show that the proposed nonlinear incremental control can reduce the maximum gust loads by up to 46.7% and the root mean square of gust loads by up to 72.9%, while expanding the flutter margin by up to 15.9%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Theory to Practice: Incremental Nonlinear Control)
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