1818 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 24, NO.
4, AUGUST 2019
Dynamics Modeling and Inversion-Based
Synchronized Model Predictive Control for a
Fabry–Perot Spectrometer
Zhi Li , Jinjun Shan , Senior Member, IEEE, and Ulrich Gabbert
Abstract—Three piezoelectric actuators (PEAs) are as-
sembled in a Fabry–Perot spectrometer (FPS) to adjust the
spacing between two optical plates. The measurement of
the FPS requires that the actuated optical plates move in
parallel with nanometer resolution. To meet this require-
ment, the motion of the three PEAs should be controlled
synchronously. Thus, the challenging tasks in control of
the Fabry–Perot (F–P) system lie in two aspects: control
of each PEA precisely at the nanometer level and control
of the three PEAs to achieve a synchronized motion. To this
end, a novel dynamic model is first proposed to describe
the inherent hysteresis effect and the system dynamical
behaviors in the F–P system. Based on the proposed model,
an inversion-based synchronized model predictive control
(SMPC) design is developed. The experimental results vali-
date the proposed control scheme.
Index Terms—Fabry–Perot spectrometer (FPS), hystere-
sis, model predictive control (MPC), piezoelectric actuators
(PEAs), system dynamics.
I. INTRODUCTION
FABRY–PEROT spectrometer (FPS), which is an optical
A instrument used for measuring the wavelengths of light,
can provide multispectral mappings for atmospheric studies.
The key technique for FPS is adjusting the spacing between
two parallel highly reflecting optical plates inside FPS at the
nanometer scale. To satisfy the requirement, multiple piezoelec-
tric actuators (PEAs), which can convert electrical signals into
mechanical motions are employed. In contrast to the traditional
electric motors, the PEAs have advantages, such as high reso-
lution, large bandwidth, and good temperature stability [1]–[6].
Manuscript received July 30, 2018; revised January 11, 2019; ac-
cepted July 7, 2019. Date of publication July 10, 2019; date of current
version August 14, 2019. This work was supported in part by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 11472090, and in part
by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Recommended by Technical
Editor C. Manzie. (Corresponding author: Jinjun Shan.)
Z. Li is with the State Key Laboratory of Synthetical Automation for
Process Industries, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
(e-mail:, gavinlizhi@gmail.com).
J. Shan is with the Department of Earth and Space Science and
Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada (e-mail:,
jjshan@yorku.ca).
U. Gabbert is with the Institute of Mechanics, Otto-von-Guericke
Universität Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany (e-mail:, ulrich.
gabbert@ovgu.de).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMECH.2019.2927752
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A critical requirement for FPS is to adjust the two optical
plates to move in parallel in order to obtain the best measurement
condition, namely, the motion of the actuating PEAs should be
synchronized. However, the inherent hysteresis effect of PEAs
and the system dynamics makes it a very challenging task. To
overcome these problems, the modeling and control approach
of the dynamic system driven by multiple PEAs should be
investigated.
In the literature, for modeling and control of the dynamic
system actuated by a single PEA, many research studies have
been reported, which mainly focus on the modeling of the
hysteresis and the inverse compensation, the modeling of the
system dynamics, and the controller design. In terms of hystere-
sis modeling and the inverse compensation, a Prandtl–Ishlinskii
(PI) model was utilized to describe the hysteresis effect of a PEA
in [7], and an analytical inverse compensator was constructed
to mitigate the hysteresis effect. In [8], the hysteresis effect was
represented by a Bouc–Wen model and an inverse multiplicative
structure was developed to compensate for the hysteresis effect.
Similar research results for different hysteresis models and
inverse compensation methods, such as the Preisach model, least
squares support vector machine-based hysteresis model, can be
found in [9]–[13]. System dynamics modeling is also a very
important factor for the applications of PEA. A lumped system
model [14]–[16] is commonly used to describe the systems
dynamics in the piezo-actuated systems. One of the advantages
of the lumped system model is that it can be easily integrated
with the hysteresis model to describe both the hysteresis effects
and the system dynamics of a piezo-actuated system.
For control of the system considering both the hysteresis
effect and the system dynamics, the available control strategies
can be classified into two categories: without and with an
inverse compensator. In the first category, the hysteresis effect
is considered as a system disturbance or uncertainty, and then
the control strategies, such as the sliding mode control [16], the
disturbance observer-based control design [17], and the adaptive
neural network dynamic surface control [18], are applied to
deal with both the hysteresis effects and the system dynamics
to guarantee a precise positioning performance. In the other
category, the hysteresis effect is properly described first and its
inverse compensator is constructed to mitigate the hysteresis
effect, and then the available linear control methods can be
directly applied to deal with the system dynamics. For example,
 LI et al.: DYNAMICS MODELING AND INVERSION-BASED SMPC FOR A FABRY–PEROT SPECTROMETER
in [3], the Preisach model is utilized to describe the hysteresis
effect of PEA, and the inverse of the Preisach model is developed
to mitigate the hysteresis effects. Then, an adaptive control
method is applied to achieve the desired tracking performance.
Similar strategies can also be found in [19] and [20].
It can be seen from the literature that the modeling and control
of the system actuated by the single PEA is well developed. For
the system with multiple PEAs, most of the current research
works focus on the multiaxis piezo-actuated positioning system,
such as a 2-DOF flexure-based mechanism [21] and a 3-DOF
piezotube scanner [22]. However, the mechanism of the F–P
system is quite different from the multiaxis piezo-actuated posi-
tioning system in this application. In the F–P system, three PEAs
are placed parallell along a single axis. Therefore, the available
modeling and control strategies for the multiaxis systems cannot
be applied directly, especially for the modeling of the system
dynamics. In our previous works [5] and [6], the modeling and
control of coupled hysteresis effects in the F–P system have
been well addressed. However, the system dynamics of the F–P
system, which plays an important role when the F–P system is
operated at higher input frequencies, is ignored in above works,
and the experimental tests in [5] are only conducted at low input
frequencies. Thus, a novel dynamic model will be proposed to
address the system dynamics of the F–P system in this paper. The
proposed dynamic model is capable of describing the coupling
effects and the system dynamics with the mechanical loads
imposed on the three PEAs.
As indicated before, one of the control purposes of the F–P
system is the synchronization control of the three PEAs. The
synchronization objective is to force the three PEAs to have a
synchronized motion in order to achieve a parallel movement
of the driven optical plate, which is a critical requirement to
guarantee accurate measurement of FPS. Toward this target, a
synchronization strategy should be considered in the controller
design. A commonly used approach for synchronizing the
motion of multiple actuators is to synthesize the cross-coupling
error [23], [24], which is a combination of a tracking error and
a synchronization error, in the controller design. It is noted that
the cost of the synchronization strategy would sacrifice the fast
responses of certain controlled actuators to achieve a synchro-
nized motion with the slow ones. In terms of the controller
design, a model predictive control (MPC) approach is selected
in this application. MPC [25], [26] is an optimization-based
approach that computes the next control action by minimizing
the difference between the predicted output of a system and a
desired tracking signal. In [27], an internal model based repet-
itive control law integrated with MPC is proposed to deal with
the periodic signal tracking problem on a piezoelectric platform.
In [20], an inversion-based MPC with an integral-of-error state
variable is proposed to improve the tracking performance of the
PEA. In [28] and [29], a MIMO MPC controller is designed
to cope with a 2-DOF piezoelectric tube scanner. It is noted
that above MPC strategies can run at 5–20 kHz in real-time,
which make the MPC controller applicable in the tracking
control of fast piezoelectric systems. However, the available
MPC strategies cannot guarantee a synchronized performance
of the controlled actuators, which cannot meet the control
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1819
Fig. 1. Image of the developed FPS.
objective of the F–P system. Therefore, in this application, an
inversion-based synchronized model predictive control (SMPC)
approach, which is a combination of the MPC approach and the
cross-coupling error concept, will be developed to deal with the
nonlinear hysteresis effects and system dynamics in the F–P
system and to achieve a synchronized motion of the driven
PEAs.
II. EXPERIMENTAL PLATFORM
Fig. 1 shows the developed FPS in the Spacecraft Dynamics
Control and Navigation Laboratory at York University. The
device was enclosed into a sealed tube and was launched on
a stratospheric balloon. So far, two successful fights: one in
Kiruna, Sweden, and the other one in Alice Springs, Australia,
have been made for the research goal of measuring aerosol,
surface albedo, and pressure at O2 A-band.
The key component of the FPS is the tunable system (F–
P system), which is used to adjust the spacing between two
parallel highly reflecting optical plates, shown in Fig. 2(a). It
should be noted that this device is only a prototype of the F–P
system, which is used for the purpose of validating the proposed
controller. Thus, only partial components, e.g., the optical plates
are not installed, are shown in Fig. 2(a). Fig. 2(b) shows a side
view of the F–P system. The F–P system is driven by three PEAs,
which attach to the front structure for holding the optical plate
of the F–P system, to adjust the spacing between the front plate
and the back plate. Three PEAs (P-887.51) with 15 μm nominal
travel range and three capacitive sensors (D-015.00) are utilized.
A voltage amplifier (E-503.00) and capacitive sensor monitor
(E-509.C3A) are employed to amplify the control signal and to
obtain the measurement from the three capacitive sensors. All
the above equipments are from Physik Instrumente. An xPC
real-time target computer is used to control the amplifier and
read from the sensor monitor through a National Instruments
PCI-6289 card. A host computer with the software MATLAB is
set up to control the target computer.
It is noted that the operating frequencies of the F–P system
depends on the design of the F–P system and its working
principle. For different types of F–P systems, such as the
MEMS-based F–P system[30], pyroelectric detector-based F–P
system, the operating frequencies could be in the range from
0.01 Hz to 1 MHz. In this design, the F–P system in the two
 1820 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 4, AUGUST 2019

positioning performance and even instability when used in

the closed-loop control system. To capture these dynamical
behaviors, a dynamic model should be proposed first.

III. MODELING AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE HYSTERETIC

BEHAVIORS AND THE SYSTEM DYNAMICS FOR
THE F–P SYSTEM

The F–P system is driven by three PEAs and each PEA

Fig. 2. Experimental platform. (a) Prototype of the F–P system
(b) Schematic plot of the F–P system.
flights were operated in a scan mode at 0.033 Hz. However, it
shows the hysteresis effect and dynamic behaviors. Besides,
the performance of the driven PEAs depends on each other and
they show coupling dynamics as seen in Fig. 3(b) and (c). To
describe this complex behavior, a model should consist of two
components: the hysteresis submodel and the system dynamics
submodel. Fig. 4 shows the diagram of the proposed model,
in which the three hysteresis models P1 − P3 are employed to
describe the hysteretic behavior in each PEA, and nine lumped
system models G11 − G33 are utilized to describe the system
dynamics, including the coupling dynamics of the F–P system.
To depict the hysteretic behavior for a PEA, many hysteresis
models are available in the literature, such as the PI model
[7], Preisach model [31], and Bouc–Wen model [8]. In this
application, considering the model accuracy and simplicity, the
PI model is selected to represent the hysteretic behavior in PEAs.
The numerical expression of the PI model [7] is written as

n

consumes a long time for a full-range scan and causes a low P [u](t) = p0 u(t) + pi Fr i [u](t) (1)
i=1
scan efficiency. The faster scan, e.g., with a scan mode up to
100 Hz, is desired in practical applications for the developed where u(t) denotes the input, Fr i [u](t) = ω(t) is the play
FPS. operator defined as
To investigate the behaviors of the F–P system with higher
ω(0) = Fr [u](0) = fr (u(0), ω−1 ) (2)
input frequencies, the system responses of the F–P system with
different input frequencies were collected, which is shown in ω(t) = Fr [u](t) = fr (u(t), ω(ti )) (3)
Fig. 3. Note that the input signals are u1 = 0.6 sin(2fr πt), u2 =
where ω−1 denotes the initial value and ti < t ≤ ti+1 , 0 ≤ i ≤
u3 = 0, where fr = 1, 10, 50, 100, u1 , u2 , and u3 denote the
N − 1, with
input to PEA 1, PEA 2, and PEA 3, respectively. Different  
input frequencies can excite the dynamic characteristics of the fr (u, ω) = max u − r, min(u + r, ω) (4)
system. Fig. 3(a) illustrates the hysteresis effects and dynamics
between the input u1 and output y1 , and it can be seen that with pi (i = 0, 1, . . . , n) is the weight of the play operator, n defines
different input frequencies the shape of the hysteresis loop goes the number of the play operators.
differently. To describe the dynamics of the F–P system, especially with
Note that the performance of the three PEAs is not in- coupling dynamics, a transfer function matrix based on the
dependent to each other and dynamic coupling effects exist diagram in Fig. 4 is expressed as
among the three PEAs. For example, Fig. 3(b) and (c) shows ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤⎡ ⎤
y1 G11 G12 G13 v1
the coupling dynamics behaviors under the input condition ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥
u1 = 0.6 sin(2fr πt), and u2 = u3 = 0. If the coupling effects ⎢ y2 ⎥ = ⎢ G21 G22 G23 ⎥ ⎢ v2 ⎥ (5)
⎣ ⎦ ⎣ ⎦⎣ ⎦
do not exist, when the input u2 and u3 are equal to zero, the
y3 G31 G32 G33 v3
output y2 and y3 should also be zero. However, from the input
and output (I/O) responses in Fig. 3(b) and (c), the outputs y2 and where Gj k , j = 1, 2, 3, k = 1, 2, 3 has the following expression
y3 show dynamic responses according to the input excitation.
KH
In addition, it is noted that the motion of the PEA 3 is different Gj k = (6)
from the other two PEAs. The reason is that the circular flexure s2 + aH s + bH
was much stiffer in the mounting area of PEA 3 than the other where KH , aH , and bH are the coefficients to be identified.
two, which leading to the complex dynamical coupling effects The next step is to identify the parameters in the proposed
together with the hysteresis nonlinearities. model. From the structure in Fig. 4, the proposed model shows a
The hysteresis and system dynamics, including the coupling cascading structure, e.g., the system dynamics preceded by the
dynamics are unwanted behaviors, they can cause inaccurate three PI models. Therefore, the identification procedure has two

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 LI et al.: DYNAMICS MODELING AND INVERSION-BASED SMPC FOR A FABRY–PEROT SPECTROMETER
Fig. 3. Hysteresis effects and system dynamics with input u 1 = 0.6 sin(2fr πt), u 2 = u 3 = 0. (a) u 1 − y 1 (b) u 1 − y 2 (c) u 1 − y 3 .
Fig. 4. Diagram of the dynamic model.
steps: identification of the three PI models and identification of
the nine transfer functions in the transfer function matrix.
A. Step I: Identification of the Three PI Models
P1 , P2 , and P3
First, a sinusoidal input
u1 (t) = Ab (t) sin(2πt)
with

2 t ∈ [0, 1)
Ab (t) =
2 − 0.2τ t ∈ [τ, τ + 1), (τ = 1, 2...9)
is applied to the PEA 1 only while keeping u2 = u3 = 0.
Remark: It is noted that the PI model is identified at a fixed
frequency. The selected frequency cannot be either too high to
excite the dynamic behavior of the system or too low to cause
the creep effect of the PEA. Therefore, a 1 Hz identification
signal is selected in this paper. However, there is no general rule
on the selection of the frequency of the identification signal.
Some trial-and-error work need to be done.
Then, the I/O data are collected and will be used to iden-
tify the weights pi in P1 [u1 ](t). Define the identified weights
in a vector as W1 = [p0 , . . . , pn ]T , where W1 ∈ R(n +1)×1 .
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1821
TABLE I
THRESHOLDS AND WEIGHTS OF THE THREE PI MODELS
C1 ∈ RN ×(n +1) is defined as the output matrix of the given
play operators Fr i [u](k), and C1 = [Fr 0 , . . . , Fr n ], Fr i =
[Fr i [1], . . . , Fr i [k], . . . , Fr i [N ]]T , N is defined as N = tf /Ts ,
tf denotes the total length of the given input, Ts denotes the sam-
pling time. In this application, tf = 10 s, and Ts = 0.00005 s.
d1 = [y1 [1], . . . , y1 [k], . . . , y1 [N ]]T with d1 ∈ RN ×1 is the
output values of the PEA 1. The weights W1 can be calculated
as
min{[C1 W1 − d1 ]T [C1 W1 − d1 ]} (9)
with the constraints
pi ≥ 0, i ∈ {0, 1, . . . , n}. (10)
(7) The MATLAB command lsqnonneg is employed to determine
the weights in W1 . The procedure for identifying the parameters
in P1 applies to P2 and P3 . Table I lists the identified results,
where ri are chosen as ri = 0.1i (i = 0, 1, . . . , n). Note that the
(8) zero weights are not provided in Table I.
B. Step II: Identification of the Nine Transfer Functions
The frequency responses of the F–P system can be obtained
by applying a chirp signal to each PEA. For example, a chirp
signal u1 is applied to PEA 1 only (u2 = u3 = 0), and then the
corresponding y1 , y2 , and y3 can be obtained. Then, MATLAB
command invfreqs with the derived data set u1 − y1 , u1 − y2 ,
and u1 − y3 can be utilized to identify the parameters in transfer
functions G11 , G21 , and G31 .
By repeating this procedure, the parameters for the rest trans-
fer functions can be identified. Fig. 5 illustrates the comparison
of the magnitudes between the experimental data and the model.
 1822 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 4, AUGUST 2019

Fig. 5. Frequency response of the F–P system versus identified response.

TABLE II
IDENTIFIED TRANSFER FUNCTIONS

Since the proposed model shows a cascading structure and its
identification is separated, one of the components in the structure
ought to be normalized. The transfer functions are normalized
in this application. The normalized transfer functions Gj k are
given in Table II.
In order to verify the developed model, sinusoidal signals
u(t) = 0.6 sin(2fr πt) with fr = 1, 10, 50, 100, are applied. As
an illustration, Fig. 6 shows the comparison between the exper-
imental data and the model at 100 Hz for the input condition
u1 (t) = u(t), u2 (t) = u3 (t) = 0. To give a quantified analysis,
a normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) En is defined as
It can be observed from Fig. 7 that the submodels P3 + G13
and P3 + G23 show relatively large modeling error than other
coupling dynamics submodels: P1 + G21 and P1 + G31 . The
reason might be due to the un-modeled system dynamics in the
F–P system.
To further validate the proposed model, two other input
signals, u(t) = sin(40πt) + 0.2 sin(20πt) and a triangular sig-
nal with the frequency of 50 Hz under the input condition
u1 = u2 = u3 = u, are applied. Fig. 8 shows the comparison
between the experimental data and the model for PEA 3, which
also shows a fair prediction behavior.

1 1 N
En = e2 (k) (11)
ȳ N k =1 IV. INVERSION-BASED SYNCHRONIZED MODEL
where N is the number of the error data, e(k) = ye (k) − ym (k) PREDICTIVE CONTROL
is the modeling error, ye and ym denote the output of the As indicated in the introduction, two control tasks: control
experimental data and the model, respectively. ȳ = ymax − ymin , of each PEA precisely at the nanometer level and control of
where ymax and ymin denote the maximum and minimum value the three PEAs to achieve a synchronized motion. In order to
of the PEAs under the given input frequency. The calculated meet both requirements, an inversion-based SMPC is proposed.
NRMSEs under different input frequencies are shown in Fig. 7. To this end, an inverse compensator is built to compensate

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 LI et al.: DYNAMICS MODELING AND INVERSION-BASED SMPC FOR A FABRY–PEROT SPECTROMETER 1823

Fig. 6. Model validation with the desired input u(t) = 0.6 sin(200πt) for PEA 1. (a) u 1 − y 1 (b) u 1 − y 2 (c) u 1 − y 3 .

Fig. 7. NRMSE with different input frequencies. (a) u 1 = u ∗ , u 2 = u 3 = 0 (b) u 2 = u ∗ , u 1 = u 3 = 0 (c) u 3 = u ∗ , u 1 = u 2 = 0.

For MPC design, a discrete formulation of the model of the

F–P system should be derived first. Based on the developed
dynamic model in (1) and (5), the discrete model is written as

xm (k + 1) = Am xm (k) + Bm P [u](k)
y(k) = Cm xm (k) (12)

where xm (k) ∈ Rn 1 ×1 , y(k) ∈ Rq ×1 , u(k) ∈ Rd×1 , Am ∈

Rn 1 ×n 1 , Bm ∈ Rn 1 ×d , Cm ∈ Rq ×n 1 , n1 , d, and q denote the
number of the states, inputs and outputs, respectively. The MAT-
LAB commands ssdata and c2dm are utilized to find the matrices
Am , Bm , and Cm , with the sampling time Ts = 0.00005 s.
Before conducting the SMPC design, an inverse feedforward
compensator is developed to mitigate the hysteresis effects de-
scribed by the PI models in (1). The numerical implementation
of the inverse PI model [7] is expressed as


n
P −1 [v](k) = p̄0 v(k) + p̄i Fr̄ i [v](k) (13)
i=1

where v(k) denotes the output of the PI model, the thresholds

r̄i , and the weights p̄i can be calculated as
Fig. 8. Model validation with a complex sinusoidal signal and a triangu-
lar signal for PEA 3. (a) Complex sinusoidal signal as input (b) Triangular
signal as input. 
i−1
r̄i = p0 ri + pj (ri − rj ) (14)
j =1
for the hysteresis nonlinearity, and the MPC approach with
a synchronization strategy by considering the cross-coupling p̄0 = 1/p0 (15)
error concept in the MPC design is developed. Note that the pi
MPC design employed in this paper follows the main steps p̄i = −  i  i−1 . (16)
p0 + j =1 pj p0 + j =1 pj
reported in [25] and [26].

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 1824 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 4, AUGUST 2019

By substituting (13) into (12), one has samples [26]. Nc is a tuning parameter, which determines the
number of future control inputs involved in the optimization.
xm (k + 1) = Am xm (k) + Bm v(k)
J = E T QE + ΔV T RΔV (21)
y(k) = Cm xm (k). (17)
where E = Y − Rd with Rd = R̄d r(k) = [Iq ×q , Iq ×q ,
Since (17) is a standard linear system, the MPC control tech-
. . . , Iq ×q ]T r(k) and r(k) ∈ Rq ×1 denote the reference signal
nique can be directly applied. In order to facilitate the controller
and is assumed to have constant entries during one prediction
design, an augmented system formulation of (17) with the aug-
horizon, Q ∈ Rq N p ×q N p and R ∈ RdN c ×dN c are diagonal
mented system matrices A ∈ R(n 1 +q )×(n 1 +q ) , B ∈ R(n 1 +q )×d ,
weighting matrices.
and C ∈ Rq ×(n 1 +q ) can be written as [25]
It should be noted that in [26] the cost function (21) does
x(k + 1) = Ax(k) + BΔv(k) not involve the synchronization strategy. By only including
the tracking error in the cost function cannot guarantee a
y(k) = Cx(k) (18) synchronized motion. In order to involve the synchronization,
where x(k + 1) ∈ R(n 1 +q )×1 and a synchronization error should be introduced into the cost
⎡ ⎤ function. The synchronization error Ξs is defined as [32]
 
Δxm (k + 1) Am 0q ×n 1
x(k + 1) = , A=⎣ ⎦ Ξs = Th Etr (22)
y(k + 1) Cm Am Iq ×q
where Ξs = [ξ1 , ξ2 , ..., ξn ]T ∈ Rn ×1 , Etr = [e1 , e2 , ..., en ]T ∈
  Rn ×1 is the tracking error and Th ∈ Rn ×n denotes the syn-
Bm  
B= , C = 0q ×n 1 Iq ×q chronization matrix. Th can be chosen in different forms to
Cm Bm characterize the synchronization error. For example,
⎡ ⎤
with 2 −1 0 · · · −1
⎢ ⎥
Δv(k) = v(k) − v(k − 1) ⎢−1 2 −1 · · · 0⎥
⎢ ⎥
Th = ⎢⎢ ..
⎥.
Δxm (k + 1) = xm (k + 1) − xm (k). (19) ⎢ . . .. . .. . .. .. ⎥
.
⎥
⎣ ⎦
The predicted Np output sequence can be expressed as
−1 0 · · · −1 2
Y = F x(k) + ΦΔV (20)
Remark: The selection of the synchronization matrix is not
where Y ∈ Rq N p ×1 , F ∈ Rq N p ×(n 1 +q ) , ΔV ∈ RdN c ×1 , and unique. The discussion on the sensitivity of system performance
Φ ∈ Rq N p ×dN c to the form of the matrix selected can be found in [33].
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ Thus, the synchronization error is included in the cost func-
y(k + 1|k) CA tion in (21) as
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ y(k + 2|k) ⎥ ⎢ CA2 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ J = E T QE + ΔV T RΔV + ΞT Qs Ξ (23)
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
Y =⎢ .. ⎥ , F = ⎢ .. ⎥ ,
⎢ . ⎥ ⎢ . ⎥ where Ξ ∈ Rq N p ×1 and Ξ = [ΞTs ΞTs ... ΞTs ]T , and Qs ∈
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎣ ⎦ ⎣ ⎦ Rq N p ×q N p is a diagonal weighting matrix. By substituting (22)
y(k + Np |k) CA Np
into (23), one has
⎡ ⎤
Δv(k) J = E T QE + ΔV T RΔV + E T T T Qs T E
⎢ ⎥
⎢ Δv(k + 1) ⎥ = E T Q∗ E + ΔV T RΔV
⎢ ⎥ (24)
ΔV = ⎢
⎢ ..
⎥
⎥
⎢ . ⎥ where Q∗ = Q + T T Qs T , and
⎣ ⎦ ⎡ ⎤
Δv(k + Nc − 1) Th
⎡ ⎤ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
CB 0q ×d ··· 0q ×d T = ⎢ ... ⎥.
⎢ ⎥ ⎣ ⎦
⎢ CAB CB ··· 0q ×d ⎥
⎢ ⎥ Th
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 2
··· ⎥
Φ = ⎢ CA B CAB 0q ×d ⎥ By minimizing the cost function in (24), the optimal control
⎢ ⎥
⎢ .. .. .. .. ⎥ sequence is derived as
⎢ . . . . ⎥
⎣ ⎦
ΔV = (ΦT Q∗ Φ + R)−1 ΦT Q∗ (R̄d r(k) − F x(k)). (25)
CAN p −1 B CAN p −2 B · · · CAN p −N c B
In order to consider the input constraints problem in the
Np and Nc denote the prediction and control horizons, respec- controller design, the constraints are given by
tively. It is noted that Nc ≤ Np is selected and it is assumed that
the incremental control has reached the steady state after Nc C1 vm in ≤ C1 v(k − 1) + C2 ΔV ≤ C1 vm ax (26)

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 LI et al.: DYNAMICS MODELING AND INVERSION-BASED SMPC FOR A FABRY–PEROT SPECTROMETER 1825

where vm in ∈ Rd×1 and vm ax ∈ Rd×1 are the input constraints, TABLE III
CALCULATION RESULTS FOR THE INVERSE PI MODELS
and C1 ∈ RdN m ×d and C2 ∈ RdN m ×dN c are defined as
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
I I 0 ··· 0
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢I ⎥ ⎢I I · · · 0⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
C1 = ⎢ . ⎥ , C2 = ⎢
⎢ ..
⎥.
⎥
⎢ .. ⎥ ⎢
.. . .
⎢ ⎥ ⎣. . . . .⎥
.
⎦
⎣ ⎦
I I I ··· I

Nm (≤ Nc ) denotes the number of future sampling instants

imposed within the control horizon Nc . Nm is a tuning pa-
rameter, which is selected depending on the performance of the
computational capacity of the microcontroller. If Nm = Nc , it performance of the three PEAs is examined with the input
means the input constraints are imposed on all future control signals at different frequencies. A comparison between the MPC
commands, which may cause a computational burden. It should and the inversion-based SMPC will be made to further verify
be noted that another two typical constraints (control incremen- the proposed controller.
tal variation and output constraints) can also be applied, see
examples reported in [25].
A. Controller Implementation
The input constraints problem can be expressed in a compact
form as follows: To implement the SMPC design, the feedforward inverse
compensator in (13) should be constructed first. Based on the
M1 ΔV ≤ N1 (27) identified results shown in Table I and (14), the thresholds r̄i
with and weights p̄i of the inverse PI models are listed in Table III.
⎡ ⎤   The transfer functions in (5) are second-order systems but the
−C2 −C1 vm in + C1 v(k − 1) measurements are only available for the displacement, i.e., not
M1 = ⎣ ⎦ , N1 = .
C2 C1 vm ax − C1 v(k − 1) all the states in (17) are measurable. Thus, a Kalman observer is
employed to estimate these states with unwanted system noise
The above input constraint problem can be solved using the and disturbances. For the detailed implementation of the Kalman
Hildreth’s quadratic programming algorithm. This approach ap- observer, the interested readers may refer to [34]–[36].
plies Lagrange multipliers with λ ≥ 0, as the decision variables The control parameters for the SMPC are selected as q = 3,
and the constrained optimization problem is written as d = 3, Q = blkdiag(Q1 , . . . , Q1 ), where blkdiag is a function
  defined in MATLAB to construct the block diagonal ma-
1 T
min λ Hλ + λT f + constant (28) trix, Q1 = 1.5eye(3), where eye(·) denotes the identity ma-
λ≥0 2 trix. Qs = blkdiag(Qs1 , . . . , Qs1 ), with Qs1 = eye(3). R =
where H = M1 (ΦT Q∗ Φ + R)M1T and f = −ΦT Q∗ (R̄d r(k) blkdiag(R1 , . . . , R1 ), with R1 = 5eye(3). The input constraints
− F x(k)). Using the reported algorithm in [25], the Lagrange are set as vm in = [−10 − 10 − 10]T and vm ax = [10 10 10]T .
multiplier vector λ can be computed. Then, the controller
considering the input constraints can be expressed as B. Controller Validation

ΔV = (ΦT Q∗ Φ + R)−1 ΦT Q∗ (R̄d r(k) − F x(k))
− (ΦT Q∗ Φ + R)−1 M1T λ.
The incremental control input for the next sampling time is
determined as
Δv(k) = Ky r(k) − Kx x(k) − Kc
where Ky , Kx , and Kc are the first d rows of (ΦT Q∗ Φ +
R)−1 ΦT Q∗ R̄d , (ΦT Q∗ Φ + R)−1 ΦT Q∗ F , and (ΦT Q∗ Φ +
R)−1 M1T λ.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In this section, the developed controller will be implemented
on the experimental F–P system. To validate the proposed
inversion-based SMPC, different input conditions will be tested.
First, a low frequency input signal is applied to validate the
elimination of the hysteresis effects. Then, the synchronization
To validate the proposed controller in terms of the hysteresis
compensation and the synchronization performance, different
(29) tracking signals are applied. Fig. 9(a) shows the output re-
sponses of the three PEAs and the desired tracking signal
u = 0.5 sin(2πt), and Fig. 9(b) illustrates the I/O responses of
the three PEAs. As shown in Fig. 9(b), the I/O responses of the
(30) three PEAs have a very good linear relationship, which means
that the hysteresis effect has been mitigated. Then, a multistep
signal is applied and Fig. 10 shows the results. It can be seen
from Fig. 10 that the motion of the three PEAs is synchronized.
To further validate the proposed controller, the comparisons
between the MPC (without considering the inverse compen-
sation and the synchronization strategy) and the inversion-
based SMPC are made. The desired input signals are u(t) =
0.07 sin(2fr πt) with fr = 1, 30, 50, 100. Fig. 11(a) and (b)
show the tracking performance of the three PEAs with the MPC
and the inversion-based SMPC at 100 Hz. For the MPC as
shown in Fig. 11(b), the outputs of the three PEAs are not

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 1826 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 4, AUGUST 2019

Fig. 9. Hysteresis compensation using the proposed control approach.

(a) Output response. (b) I/O response.

Fig. 11. Model validation with different input frequencies and the
RMSE. (a) Inversion-based SMPC at 100 Hz. (b) MPC at 100 Hz.
(c) RMSE of the synchronization error.

Fig. 10. Synchronized motion validation in multistep input condition.

synchronization error is given by
well synchronized, which show different responses and cannot
accurately track the desired trajectories. The main reasons for
the MPC to cause the nonsynchronized motion of the three
PEAs are due to the hysteresis nonlinearity of the PEA and not
to consider the synchronization errors among the three PEAs.
Both reasons cause the outputs of the three PEAs with the MPC
approach to show lag behind and nonsynchronized tracking
performance in Fig. 11(b).
To have a quantified analysis, the root mean square error
(RMSE) of the synchronization error is calculated for the
input signals at 1, 30, 50, and 100 Hz. The RMSE of the
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 3 
1 M
Er = (δi (k))2 (31)
M k =1
i=1
where δi (k) = Thi Etr , Etr = [e1 (k) e2 (k) e3 (k)]T denotes the
tracking error for the three PEAs, Thi denotes the ith row in the
synchronization transform matrix Th , M is the total number
of the error data. It can be seen from Fig. 11(c) that with
higher input frequencies, the RMSE increases dramatically for
the MPC approach, while for the inversion-based SMPC the
RMSE remains at the acceptable level. The comparison results
indicate that the inversion-based SMPC works very well for the
input conditions at higher input frequencies.
 LI et al.: DYNAMICS MODELING AND INVERSION-BASED SMPC FOR A FABRY–PEROT SPECTROMETER
VI. CONCLUSION
Control of FPS actuated by three PEA requires: first, indi-
vidual control of PEA at nanometer level; second, guaranteed
synchronized motion of the three PEAs. Toward these control
requirements, a dynamic model is first developed to represent
the inherent hysteresis effects and system dynamics of the F–P
system. Based on the proposed dynamic model, an inversion-
based SMPC is developed. The proposed model is validated
experimentally using different input signals and shows a good
prediction of the hysteresis effects and the system dynamics. For
the inversion-based SMPC controller, the experimental results
show that the developed controller can compensate for the
hysteretic behaviors and at the same time achieve a synchronized
performance of the three driven PEAs. To further validate
the synchronization performance, the comparisons between the
MPC and the inversion-based SMPC are made. In comparison to
the MPC approach, the inversion-based SMPC approach shows
excellent synchronization performance, especially at higher
input frequencies.
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 1828 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 4, AUGUST 2019

Zhi Li received the Ph.D. degree in me-
chanical engineering from Concordia University,
Montreal, QC, Canada, in 2015.
He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Nether-
lands, and York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
He was an Alexander von Humboldt Research
Fellow at Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magde-
burg, Magdeburg, Germany. He is currently a
Full Professor of the State Key Laboratory of
Synthetical Automation for Process Industries,
Northeastern University, Shenyang, China. His research interests in-
clude dynamics and control of smart actuators, and hysteresis modeling
and compensation.
Ulrich Gabbert received the Dr.-Ing. degree in
engineering and the Dr.-Ing. Habilitation degree
in computational mechanics from the University
of Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany, in 1974
and 1988, respectively.
He worked for a few years in industry, respon-
sible for strength of materials, safety design,
and software development. At the beginning
of the 1980s, he returned to the University of
Magdeburg and became the Head of a group
developing finite-element software for industrial
applications. Since 1992, he has been a Full Professor of computational
mechanics. His research interests include finite-element methods, smart
structures, active vibration and noise control, and structural health
monitoring.

Jinjun Shan (SM’08) received the Ph.D. degree

in spacecraft design from Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin, China, in 2002.
He is currently Full Professor of Space
Engineering and Chair of the Department of
Earth and Space Science and Engineering,
York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. He was
a Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of
Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. His re-
search interests include dynamics, control, and
navigation.
Dr. Shan was a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH)
Research Fellowship and JSPS Invitation Fellowship in 2012. Since
2012, he has been a Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario.

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