Varying-Radius Tunnel-Following NMPC for Robot Manipulators Using Sequential Convex Quadratic Programming

Improving performance and increasing process profitability represent a priority for the long‐term operation of the crude oil distillation process. To increase process profitability and maintain control performance, in this paper, an improved economic‐based nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) strategy is used to optimize the crude oil distillation (CDU) process. Considering the strong coupling and nonlinear dynamics of the CDU process, we make some modifications for the existing NMPC strategy. To reduce the complexity of the nonlinear prediction model, a support vector regression (SVR) based model is employed to describe the dynamical behaviour of the CDU process. Considering the coupling of the CDU process, we propose the concept of the coupling weighting factor to modify the objective function of the NMPC optimization problem. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed improved NMPC algorithm for the CDU process.

SummaryThis article addresses the problem of designing a sensor fault‐tolerant controller for an observation process where a primary, controlled system observes, through a set of measurements, an exogenous system to estimate the state of this system. We consider sensor faults captured by a change in a set of sensor parameters affecting the measurements. Using this parametrization, we present a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) scheme to control the observation process and actively detect and estimate possible sensor faults, with adaptive controller reconfiguration to optimize the use of the remaining sensing capabilities. A key feature of the proposed scheme is the design of observability indices for the NMPC stage cost to improve the observability of both the state of the exogenous system and the sensor fault parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is illustrated through numerical simulations.

In this paper, we propose a real-time nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) strategy for stabilization of a vehicle near the limit of lateral acceleration using the rear axle electric torque vectoring configuration of an electric vehicle. A nonlinear four-wheel vehicle model that neglects the wheel dynamics is coupled with a nonlinear tire model to design three MPC strategies of different levels of complexity that are implementable online: one that uses a linearized version of the vehicle model and then solves the resulting quadratic program problem to compute the necessary longitudinal slips on the rear wheels, a second one that employs the real-time iteration scheme on the NMPC problem, and a third one that applies the primal dual interior point method on the NMPC problem instead until convergence. Then, a sliding mode slip controller is used to compute the necessary torques on the rear wheels based on the requested longitudinal slips. After analyzing the relative tradeoffs in performance and computational cost between the three MPC strategies by comparing them against the optimal solution in a series of simulation studies, we test the most promising solution in a high-fidelity environment.

This work establishes the feasibility of using a multilayer perceptron for the development of a multimodel that combines structurally simple local models developed in different operating regions. The local models either are obtained by linearizing a first principles model or are identified from input−output data using a linear combination of Laguerre filters. In particular, it is shown that the proposed multimodels can capture dynamic and steady-state characteristics of a continuous fermenter, which exhibit input multiplicities and change in the sign of steady-state gains, fairly accurately over a wide operating range. The proposed multimodel is further used to develop a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) scheme. The effectiveness of the NMPC scheme is demonstrated by simulating a servo problem that requires the fermenter to be controlled at its optimum operating point, which happens to be singular points where the invertibility is lost. The proposed NMPC scheme is found to achieve a smooth transition for large-magnitude setpoint changes and control the systems at the singular operating point even in the presence of measurement noise. The NMPC scheme is also found to be robust to moderate variations in system parameters.

Nonlinear MPC based on a Volterra series model for greenhouse temperature control using natural ventilation

In this article, we present a quasi-infinite horizon nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) scheme for tracking of generic reference trajectories. This scheme is applicable to nonlinear systems, which are locally incrementally stabilizable. For such systems, we provide a reference generic offline procedure to compute an incrementally stabilizing feedback with a continuously parameterized quadratic quasi-infinite horizon terminal cost. As a result, we get a nonlinear reference tracking MPC scheme with a valid terminal cost for general reachable reference trajectories without increasing the online computational complexity. The practicality of this approach is demonstrated with a benchmark example.

The article studies the trajectory tracking control problem of underactuated marine vehicles via the nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) strategy, where practical control and state constraints present. It is a well-known challenging issue that the conventional NMPC is not applicable for underactuated marine vehicles, due to the fact that there does not exist a local static continuous state-feedback controller to stabilize the underactuated dynamics. To resolve this issue, this article proposes to construct an auxiliary time-varying tracking controller to aid terminal constraint design in the NMPC framework, where the time-varying tracking controller borrows the ideas from Lyapunov's direct method and backstepping approach. Based on this, a novel NMPC algorithm is designed to ensure trajectory tracking control of underactuated marine vehicles. Furthermore, a systematic parameter design approach is developed. Under the designed parameters, we show that the tracking error system is input-to-state stable (ISS). Finally, the effectiveness of the designed algorithm is verified by thorough simulation and hardware experiments.

Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of Electrical Submersible Pumps based on Echo State Networks

Optimal operation of a large-scale packed bed chemical-looping combustion process using nonlinear model predictive control

In this paper, we provide a method for a quadrotor to track a ground moving target (GMT). The least squares method is used to obtain a series of reference trajectories generated by the GMT. The tracking is accomplished by applying a novel nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) scheme. The nonlinear MPC scheme applied can deal with the dynamic trajectory tracking problem of nonlinear systems by using reference generic terminal ingredients. After obtaining the reachable reference trajectories and calculating the terminal ingredients of the nonlinear MPC problem, the nonlinear MPC problem can be solved online to obtain the control inputs that enable the quadrotor to accurately track the GMT. A simulation experiment is conducted to verify the efficacy of this method.

Integrated nonlinear model predictive fault tolerant control and multiple model based fault detection and diagnosis

Nonlinear model predictive control, which is conceptually similar to its linear counterpart except that nonlinear dynamic model is used for process prediction and optimization, is a developing control field. The proposed nonlinear model predictive control scheme, which is called nonlinear sliding mode model predictive control, integrates model predictive control and sliding mode variable structure control. A feasible dual-mode control scheme is presented in the paper, sliding mode predictive controller is implemented while the system state is outside the terminal region, besides sliding mode variable structure control designed off-line is used. The resulting control scheme has strong points of the two control methods. By predicting the pre-designed switching function, the predictive control sequence can be found by solving constrained open-loop optimal control problem, and the current control is implemented. At next sampling time the optimizing procedure is repeated. By constraining terminal sliding mode with an inequality, the state is steered into the predesigned sliding mode region, then the closed-loop stability is proved, and furthermore the system performance is analyzed. With some conditions, the method can be extended to a quasi-infinite horizon formulation. Simulation results show that less calculation is needed.

Controlling continuum robots with precision is particularly a challenging task due to the complexity of their mathematical models and inaccuracies in modeling approaches. Therefore, most advanced control schemes have shown poor performances, especially in trajectory tracking accuracy. This paper presents a proposed Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) scheme to solve the trajectory tracking of a class of continuum robots, namely Cable-Driven Continuum Robot (CDCR). However, since NMPC schemes are often limited by the computational burden associated with the optimization algorithms to be solved at each sampling time, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to solve the arising optimization problem NMPC, thanks to its simplicity and fast convergence. The proposed NMPC-PSO scheme is applied to the developed kinematic and dynamic models of the considered CDCR. Based on the kinematic and dynamic model, the two proposed controllers have been validated against numerical simulations of two-dimensional CDCR with two bending sections for set-point stabilization and point-to-point trajectory tracking. For both controllers, the performance of tracking accuracy and computation time is analyzed and compared. Moreover, the obtained simulation results are compared to the available literature works. In view of the results obtained on the considered CDCR, the proposed NMPC-PSO scheme can track in real-time the desired trajectory with high accuracy and much less execution time than other advanced control schemes, which makes it an alternative for real-time applications.

In this article, a robust nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) scheme is proposed for the visual servoing of quadrotors subject to external disturbances. By using the virtual camera approach, the image moments are defined in the virtual camera plane and adopted as visual features to derive the decoupled image kinematics. As a result, the image-based visual servoing (IBVS) system model is established by integrating the image kinematics and quadrotor dynamics. To handle the visibility constraint, a robust NMPC scheme is developed for the IBVS of the quadrotor such that the visual target can stay within the field of view of the camera. In addition, based on the Lipschitz condition, the tightened state constraints are constructed to tackle external disturbances. The sufficient conditions on guaranteeing recursive feasibility of the proposed NMPC algorithm are derived. Furthermore, we theoretically show that the tracking error will converge to a small set around the origin in finite time under some derived conditions. Finally, simulation studies and experimental tests are conducted to verify the efficacy of the proposed method.

Nonlinear MPC for the airflow in a PEM fuel cell using a Volterra series model