Proceedings of the 38Ih

Conference on Decision & Control

Phoenix, Arizona USA December 1999
Fr Ml l 14: OO
Global Output-Feedback Tracking
for a Benchmark Nonlinear System *
Zhong-Ping J iang Ioannis Kanellakopoulos
Department of Electrical Engineering
Polytechnic University University of California
Brooklyn, NY 11201.
zjiang@control.poly.edu ioannis@ee.ucla.edu
Department of Electrical Engineering
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1594
Abstract: In this paper, the output-feedback global
tracking problem is solved for the well-known nonlinear
benchmark RTAC system, where one of the unmea-
sured states appears quadratically in the state equa-
tions. Our novel observer-controller backstepping de-
sign yields a nonlinear output-feedback controller that
forces the translational displacement to globally asymp-
totically track an appropriate time-varying signal. The
proposed solution is new even for the case of global
output-feedback stabilization, namely when the refer-
ence signal is zero.
1 Introduction
The problem of controlling the nonlinear benchmark
mechanical system usually called RTAC (for Rotational-
Translational Actuator) or TORA (Translational Os-
cillator with a Rotational Actuator) was introduced
in [lo]. This problem has recently received a consid-
erable amount of attention from several researchers [l,
2, 3, 4, 10, 111. Due to the weak, sinusoid-type non-
linear interaction between the translational oscillations
and the rotational motion, the dynamic model of this
RTAC is not globally feedback linearizable. There-
fore, the direct application of well-known nonlinear
control schemes such as feedback linearization does not
solve the global stabilization problem. In the afore-
mentioned papers, several novel nonlinear approaches
have been developed, based on integrator backstepping
and passivity techniques, for the state- and output-
feedback stabilization and tracking problems. More-
over, some of these approaches have been validated
through experimental results.
The objective of this paper is to address the problem
of output-feedback global tracking for this benchmark
system, following our previous results for the state-
feedback [ll] and output-feedback [4] problems. We
'The work of the first author was supported in part by a
start-up grant from Polytechnic University. The work of the
second author was supported in part by NSF under Grant ECS-
9502945.
consider the translational position and the rotational
angle as the two outputs and assume that the linear
and angular velocities are not available for feedback.
The main difficulty here is that the system equations
depend nonlinearly on an unmeasured state; this ren-
ders existing global output-feedback stabilization and
tracking methods [6, 7, 81 not applicable to the RTAC
system. The semiglobal approach proposed in [4] forces
the translational displacement to track a suitably de-
fined reference signal for any given bounded region of
initial conditions. In this paper, we give a global so-
lution to the output-feedback tracking problem. By
exploiting the physical structure of the RTAC system,
the proposed tracking methodology not only accom-
modates all initial conditions with the same controller,
but also guarantees asymptotic tracking for a larger
class of reference signals than the semiglobal scheme
of [4].
Notation: For a vector 2 E Rn, zT denotes its trans-
pose and 1%) its Euclidean norm. For a time-varying
system E =g ( t , J ) +~ ( t ) , W+(.,t ) denotes the tra-
jectory starting from $ at t =0 .and W(.,t ) means
@99(.Lt)I i.e., the trajectory of =g ( t , t ) starting
from 5 at t =0. I nxn is the identity matrix of or-
der n while On, , is the null matrix of order n. GAS
means global asymptotic stability while UGAS stands
for uniform global asymptotic stability.
2 A benchmark problem
The nonlinear benchmark system considered in this
section was introduced by Wan, Bernstein and Cop-
pola in [lo] and is known as RTAC or TORA. It is a
mechanical system in which the translational oscilla-
tions of the platform are controlled via the rotational
motion of an eccentric mass. Assuming that the plat-
form moves in the horizontal plane, the dynamics of
the system are described by
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w1ierc.I; is the disturbance force actirig on the cart, N
is the control torque applied to the proof mass, x, is
the translational position and 8 is the rotational angle.
In (l), 11.1represents the total mass of the disk and the
cart, m and I represent the mass and the moment of
inertia of the eccentric mass, respectively, and T is the
radius of rotation.
Asin [lo], after some appropriate normalized transfor-
mations, equations (1) and (1) are simplified to
$ , I + Xd = &(e2sino - ecosq f Fd
(2)
8 = U-&XdCOS8,
where 0 <E <1 and U is the control input. In the new
coordinates defined by
(3)
the system (2) is described by the following state-space
representation
x 1 = 22
x2 = - 2 1 +tsi nx3 +Fd
X B = x4 (4)
x 4 = U + X
E cos 2 3
1 - E2 cos2 x3 1 - E2 cos2 5 3
e2 cos 2 3 sin 2 3
xi.
1 - E2 cos2 2 3
(21 - t sin 23 - Fd) -
In the rest of the paper, weassume that there is no dis-
turbance, i.e. Fd =0 in (4). We further assume that
y =(21, ~ 3 ) ~ is the measured output. In other words,
weonly require that the translational displacement x,
and the rotational angle 8 of the original system (1)
and (1) be measured; the corresponding linear and an-
gular velocities i, and d are assumed to be unavailable
for feedback. This assumption is meaningful from a
practical point of view, since speed sensors are more
expensive and noisier than position sensors.
The control task weaddress in this paper is the prob-
lem of output-feedback global tracking for the RTAC
system described by (2). In particular, given an ap-
propriately defined reference signal x, ( t ) , we want to
find a dynamic output-feedback law of the form
6 =.(t,Y,O) , U =P(t,Y,C) (5)
such that. the states of the closed-loop system (4) and
(5) are bounded on [0, fw). Furthermore, for any ini-
tial value x d ( O ) , the tracking error xd( t ) - x r ( t ) con-
verges to zero as t goes to fw.
In a previous paper [4], weproposed a semiglobal solu-
tion to this problem, which forces xd( t ) - zcr(t) to zero,
provided that a fixed but arbitrary bound on the size
of the initial conditions set (xd(o), kd( o) , 8(0), 8(0)) is
known. A family of reference signals x,.(t) which can
be tracked was also identified in [4]. The semiglobal
output-feedback tracking design of [4] relies on the
knowledge of a global state-feedback tracking controller
and the incorporation of a high-gain observer. It
was shown in [4] that semiglobal tracking was achieved
when some observer parameters were chosen to be suffi-
ciently large. In this paper, weproceed with a new idea
which for the first time allows the global stabilization
through output-feedback of a system whose nonlinear-
ities depend on unmeasured states. It is of interest to
note that we are able to track an even larger class of
reference signals by means of the global solution pro-
posed in this paper. For a subclass of reference signals,
our global solution yields the UGAS (Uniform Global
Asymptotic Stability) property for the null solution of
the closed-loop system written in appropriate coordi-
nates (see Section 4 for details).
To identify these reference signals, we first note that
the state Xd satisfies
which leads us to introduce an additional differential
equation
(7)
1
ij =- - ( &+ x r ) .
&
Now, our class of reference signals can be characterized
by the following assumption.
Assumption 1 The reference time-varying signal x r ( t )
and its derivatives &(t ), &( t ) are bounded on [0, m).
In addition, there is at least one solution ( ~ ( t ) , i ( t ) ) of
(7), with appropriate initial values, which satisfies the
inequalities
where 0 <qmax <1 is a constant.
3 Global tracking via output
feedback
The purpose of this section is to introduce an observer-
based output-feedback design method to solve the global
tracking problem formulated in Section 2. As stated
already, the major difficulty lies in the fact that the
vector field in system (4) depends nonlinearly on the
unmeasured state 24. The novelty of our controller de-
sign is the introduction of a nonlinear state transfor-
mation that eliminates this quadratic dependence on
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2 4 in (4). That is, the obtained transformed system
is made to depend only linearly on the unmeasured
states. From there, a new observer/controller inter-
laced backstepping procedure is introduced to achieve
our design objective.
3.1 Observer design
In order to design an observer for the unmeasured 2 4 -
state, weintroduce the nonlinear transformation
x =2 4 - 11,(X3)X4 (9)
where 11, is a smooth function to be determined later.
This type of transformation idea was used in [12] to
deal with a class of nonlinear systems that are linear
in unmeasured states and can be globally stabilized
using output feedback. Equation (4) implies that
If wechoose 11, to satisfy the equality
then, weobtain
I t is interesting to note that the quadratic term xz dis-
appeared from the X-system (11). As a consequence,
in the new coordinates (x1,22,23, x), the vector field
of (4), with Fd =0, now depends linearly on the un-
measured states (22, x):
XI = 22
x2 = -21 +si n23
Clearly, wemust select a function 11, so that (10) holds
and 1 - 11,(23) is nonzero for any 23 E R. Indeed, this
is possible with the help of the following lemma whose
proof is straightforward. Notice that the choice of such
a function 11, is not unique.
Lemma 1 The function
11,(23) =1 + (13)
satisfies the equality (10) and the following property
V X ~ E R (14)
1
2 5 d J ( X 3 ) I 1 +r> 7
We are now ready to design two observers to recon-
struct the unmeasured states 22 and x of the system
(12). Towards this end, weintroduce a new variable
with L1 a positive design parameter. Noting that
(1 =-L1G - (L; +1)xl +si n23 ,
(16)
wenaturally introduce an observer of the form
t1 h =-L1& - (Lf +1)xl +si n23
(17)
h
Denoting the observation error by el =51-cl, wehave
e1 =-Llel (18)
h
Consequently, +Ll xl is an asymptotically exact es-
timate of 22 =51 +Ll xl - el. Similarly, weintroduce
a new variable 52 =x+ L223 with L2a positive design
parameter. With (12), the &-dynamics satisfies
(52 - L223) (19)
L2
11,(x3) - 1
52 = -
Therefore, weintroduce the following observer
Letting the observation error e2 =52 - 52, weobtain
As a direct application of Lemma 1 and Gronwall-
Bellman inequality, wehave
Lemma 2 For any initial condition e2(0) and any t 2
0, the solution e2(t) of (21) satisfies
3.2 A new backstepping design
Before applying backstepping to design a *sired tracker
based on the new coordinates (21~x2, x3,52), weintro-
duce some suitable reference signals for these states.
Using the time-varying signals v(t) and e( t ) which sat-
isfy Assumption 1, we define
(23)
1
cos 0,
=arcsin(q) , 8, =- li
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Then, we introdlice the following variables
Z = IC,, +E ~C OS O - I C . ~ - E&COSe,
(24)
z3 = e - er
It is apparent that zd(t) converges to z,(t) as t -+00
if z =(21,z2,23,24)* goes to zero a5 t + CO. Thus,
we will translate our problem of global tracking into
a problem of global asymptotic stabilization (GAS) for
the new z-system. In view of (3), (12), (7), (13) and
(20), wehave
21 = z2
22 = -zl +E (sin(z3 +e, ) - sine,)
1 - E2
1 - E2 cos2 x3
(-L223 +z4 - e2)
23 = -\i
24 + Y
1
q / ( l - &2)(1-&2coS2x~)
where Y is a function of ( e, , dr , &, z 3, z ~) . Note that
22 is not measured. However, wehave
A
22 = 22 - el
h
22 = +Ll(z1 +zr +EV) - j.r - ~ l j
Next, wewill apply the backstepping approach to the
system (25) in order to design a GAS feedback law U =
u(t, z1,22, ~3 ~~4 ) . As explained earlier, this, in turn,
solves the problem of output-feedback global tracking
for the original model (2). Our constructive proce-
dure has been inspired by the global state-feedback
backstepping scheme proposed in [4, Sec. 4.11 and the
cascade stabilization algorithm presented in [3, Sec. 31.
As in [3,4], due to the weak effect of the virtual control
input 23 via the bounded sinus function, wewill start
the controller design procedure from the critically sta-
ble (zl, z2)-subsystem. This explains to some extent
why-we do-not work with the measured coordinates
(21 9 t1, 23 t2).
Step 1 : Consider the (zl,z2)-subsystem of (25) with
z3 viewed as the virtual control input. Differentiating
the quadratic function VI =$2; +i.2with respect to
time gives
VI = E Z ~ (sin(z3 +e,) - sine,) (26)
Guided by the state-feedback design in [4, Sec. 4.11, we
introduce the following Certainty Equivalence (CE)
based virtual controller
Z3 =z3 +I1arctan22
(27)
where 0 <11 <2(1 - 20max/7r) is a design parameter
and Om,, is a constant in (0,7r/2) such that le,(t)l 5
Omax. Why CE? Because z3 =-11 arctanzz makes
VI in (26) negative semi-definite. However, this vir-
tual stabilizer depends on the unmeasured state z2.
With (26) and (27), letting 2 =(z1, ZZ) ~, the (zl, z2)-
subsystem of (25) can be rewritten as
Z = f ( t, z, el , i ) (28)
In the next steps, we will apply backstepping to the
(Z3, zr)-system (not the entire system (25)!) and design
a nonlinear controller U of the form (5) to drive &(t)
to the origin at an exponential rate as t + CO.
Step 2 : Consider the quadratic function
(29)
V, =-g 1 +-e: 1 +-e2 1 2
2 2 2
and introduce two new variables
1 - E2 cos2 23 11
(-21 +E sin(z3 +e,) - E sin e,)
= z4 - ai ( e r , er , z2+el , z3 +e,>
where c1 >lTL1/2 +l / ( 2L 2dm) is
-
24
a design pa-
rameter. Notice that 22 +el =8 and z3 +0,. =
z3 are .available for feedback design. Also note that
al (~,,B,,O,~,) =0. Byvirtueof (18), (21) andLemma
1, completing the squares weobtain
(32)
- L 2 m e ; - Z3z4J 1 - E2
2 1 - E2 cos2 23
Step 3 : Consider the function
(33)
1,
V3 =V2(%,el1e2) +2z4
Differentiate V3 along the solutions of (18), (21) and
(26) and choose the following tracking control law to
make V3 negative definite:
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aal . aal .. aal .
-- eT - -eT - ---eT
aeT ao, ax3
r
+e, (J--"-"^. 1 - E' COS' (z3 +0,) - 1)]} (34)
where c2 >0 is a design parameter, and 2, 2, 2
and % stand for the partial derivatives of a1 with
respect to its first to fourth argument, respectively.
Indeed, when (34) is substituted into V 3 , from (32)
and the completion of the squares, it follows that
(35)
Letting
a =min {(c1- + - A) 2 L 2 m , c 2 , + , L z F }
(36)
V3 5 - 2a&( ~~, ~* , el , e~) (37)
(35) implies
The statement and the proof of our main stability re-
sults are given in the next section.
4 Main results
Weare now ready to state our main theorem.
Theorem 1 For any reference signal xT( t ) satisfying
Assumption 1, the problem of global output-feedback
tracking is solvable for the benchmark system [2) with
Fd =0.
Before proving Theorem 1, wegive a technical stability
result for a nonautonomous cascade system of the type
[ = f ( t , S, Y) (38)
t = f d( t , O (39)
Y = HC (40)
where [ E EtRn(, C E Etn<, y E EtRn. and H is a con-
stant nC x ny matrix. We assume that the continuous
function f is C1 in [, for each fixed ( t , y ) . We further
make the following assumptions on the cascade system
(38), (39) and (40).
(Al ) The zero-input [-system (38), i.e. [ =f ( t , [ , O) :=
g ( t , [ ) , is globally asymptotically stable (GAS) at <=
0.
( A2) The driving <-system (39) is globally exponen-
tially stable (GES) at =0. That is, there exist two
positive constants lc'and a such that
IC(t)l L klC(O)IexP(-at) , v t 2 0 (41)
(A3) f is globally Lipschitz in (<, y ) on [0, +CO) x Rn ( x
for some constant L >0, all t 2 0 and any pair of
EtRn. 7 i.e. I f ( t , t, Y ) - f ( t , <I , Y' )l I LI(t - 5'7 Y - Y Y I
(t, Y ) , ( <I , Y?.
Lemma 3 Under Assumptions (Ai ), (A2) and (A3),
if a >L, the cascade system is GAS at the equilibrium
(<, c) =(0,O). Moreover, if the zero-input <-system
is uniformly globally asymptotically stable [UGAS) at
<=0, then the cascade system is UGAS at ( [ , C) =
(0,O).
Proof. We first note that, thanks to the global Lip-
schitzness condition and the GES property, every so-
lution (<(t), C(t)) of the cascade system is defined for
all t 2 0. We will invoke the approximation Theorem
5.1 of [9] to establish Lemma 3. Let IC =f ( t , <, y) -
f ( t , <, 0). By (A2), there is a constant a >0 such that
Itc(t)l 5 Kexp(-at) , V t 2 0 (42)
where K 2 0 is proportional to the magnitude of the
initial condition <( O) . It is clear that the conditions
C1 and C2 of [9, Theorem 5.11 hold for the system
i =g( t , [) +IC. Choose an r >0 in such a way that
a >L +K/ r . A direct application of 19, Theorem 5.11
yields that, for every 8 E Etn, there exists a r in the
ball B( 8, r ) c l Rnc such that
p9+(t,E) - ' ~ 9 ( t , r ) l I rexp(-at) , v t 2 o (43)
Since K in (42) can be selected arbitrarily large, from
(43), both statements of Lemma 3 follow readily. AAA
Now, wereturn to prove Theorem 1.
Proof of Theorem 1: Using the notations in Section
3, the closed-loop system (25), (18), (21) and (34) can
be put into the cascade form (38), (39) and (40). In the
present case, (38) is ( 28) and, letting =(el, Z ~ , & , e 2 ) ~
and H =( 1 2 x 2 , 0 2 x 2 ) , wehave
c =fd(t,C) (44)
As it can be directly checked from (37) with V 3 =
+ S T [ , the condition (A2) is satisfied. On the other
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hand, according to the definition of f in (25) and (28),
it is directly verified that f is globally Lipschitz with
L =niax(1, E . dl}, i.e. (A3) holds. In addition,
by the definition of a in (36), the design parameters
c1, c2, L1 and L2 can be chosen appropriately so that
that a >L. I t remains to verify (Al ). When setting
el =Z3 =0 in (28), the time derivative of Vi in (26)
becomes
11arctan 2 2
2
11 arctan z2 - 28,
2
cos VI =- 2~~2si n
which, together with the choice of 11 in (0, 2-4OmaX/r),
implies that VI is nonpositive and is equal to zero if
and only if 22 =0. Lyapunov stability theory tells
us that the zero-input (-system is globally stable. Fur-
thermore, from Barbalats lemma (see, e.g., [6, p. 491]),
zz(t) goes to zero as t + +CO. As in [4, Sec.4.11, by
an application of [5, Lemma 21 to the equation
22 =-z1 +E(sin(z3 +e,) -sin@,) ,
(45)
we conclude that zl ( t ) also goes to zero as t -++CO.
Therefore, the property (Al) has been proved. Finally,
the proof of Theorem 1 is completed with the help of
Lemma 3. AAA
For a subclass of reference signals identified in As-
sumption 1, that is, a set of periodic reference signals
x, ( t ) , we can even conclude the uniform convergence
of 2 d ( t ) - x,(t) to zero.
Corollary 1 Under the conditions of Theorem 1, i f
x,(t) and the deduced signal q(t) in Assumption 1 are
periodic, all the states of the closed-loop system are
uniformly bounded. In particular, Xd(t) - x,.(t) uni-
formly converges t o zero as t -++ca.
5 Concluding remarks
The problem of output-feedback tracking for the well-
known nonlinear benchmark RTAC system has been
solved globally for the first time. The novelty of this
paper is the introduction of a nonlinear state transfor-
mation which eliminates the quadratic dependence of
the system equations on the unmeasured states. This
transformation then allows the design of a novel ob-
server/controller backstepping scheme, which leads to
the desired global output-feedback tracking.
Lyapunov-based backstepping designs are inherently
robust to some types of disturbances, and can be robus-
tified with respect to many other types. Our controller
can also be robustified against several types of distur-
bances using techniques very similar to those in [ll]. A
complete study of the robustness issue is beyond the
scope of this paper, but it undoubtedly is a topic that
deserves further attention.
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