Extending passivity-based control beyond mechanics: a synchronous motor example

摘要

The potential success of a new controller design in practical applications hinges upon its ability to improve the performance of the existing engineering schemes, as well as its compatibility with current practice. While the first one is a widely accepted sine qua non condition, the latter builds up confidence on the proposition and facilitates the communication between practitioners and control theorists. The purpose of this paper is to bring to the readers attention a nonlinear controller design technique –passivity–based control (PBC)– that enjoys these two essential features. PBC concentrates on the energy properties of the controlled system and its final aim is to assign to the closed–loop a desired energy function. In this way, the desired performance is specified in terms of energy, a fundamental concept which is well–understood in engineering practice. This “energy–shaping" approach to control is well–known in robotics and has been recently extended, e.g. to cover electrical and electromechanical systems, adopting two different perspectives. We illustrate both approaches in this paper with their application to the control of synchronous motors.