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Analysis and Design of Strongly Stabilizing PID Controllers for Time-Delay Systems

Pieter Appeltans
KU Leuven, Department of Computer Science, NUMA Section
Leuven, Belgium.
Email: [email protected]
Silviu-Iulian Niculescu
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, CentraleSupélec,
Laboratory of Signals and Systems (L2S), Inria Team “DISCO”
Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
E-mail: [email protected]
Wim Michiels
KU Leuven, Department of Computer Science, NUMA Section
Leuven, Belgium.
Email: [email protected]
Abstract

This paper presents the analysis of the stability properties of PID controllers for dynamical systems with multiple state delays, focusing on the mathematical characterization of the potential sensitivity of stability with respect to infinitesimal parametric perturbations. These perturbations originate for instance from neglecting feedback delay, a finite difference approximation of the derivative action, or neglecting fast dynamics. The analysis of these potential sensitivity problems leads us to the introduction of a ‘robustified’ notion of stability called strong stability, inspired by the corresponding notion for neutral functional differential equations. We prove that strong stability can be achieved by adding a low-pass filter with a sufficiently large cut-off frequency to the control loop, on the condition that the filter itself does not destabilize the nominal closed-loop system. Throughout the paper, the theoretical results are illustrated by examples that can be analyzed analytically, including, among others, a third-order unstable system where both proportional and derivative control action are necessary for achieving stability, while the regions in the gain parameter-space for stability and strong stability are not identical. Besides the analysis of strong stability, a computational procedure is provided for designing strongly stabilizing PID controllers. Computational case-studies illustrating this design procedure complete the presentation.

Keywords — PID control, Stability, Modelling uncertainty, Robustness.
AMS subject classifications 93B35, 93B52,93C23,93D15,93D22.

1 Introduction

In this paper we analyze proportional-integral-derivative (PID) output feedback control of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) linear time invariant (LTI) dynamical systems with discrete state delays. PID controllers are used in many control applications and are well-established in industry due to their implementation simplicity. Literature extending the PID control framework to systems with delays includes, among others, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] and the references therein, and focuses on an analytic characterization of the stabilization and stabilizability of (low-order) systems with input/output delay.

Central in the presented work is the analysis of the sensitivity of stability of the closed-loop system with respect to arbitrarily small modelling errors, which include for instance neglected feedback delay, a finite-difference approximation of the derivative and neglected high-frequency behavior. Similar sensitivity problems are examined in [10], in which the concept of w-stability is introduced. w-Stability requires that the closed-loop system remains stable for sufficiently small perturbations, where the considered perturbation class consists of approximate identities (see [11, Section V.C] for a definition of approximate identities). Of interest for this work, is Section 4 which examines non-proper rational controllers, such as PID controllers, for the control of rational (finite-dimensional) plants. More specifically, Theorem 2 in [10] suggests that w-stability can be induced by adding a low-pass filter with a sufficiently large cut-off frequency to the control loop. However, as suggested by [10, Theorem 3] such a low-pass filter can itself destroy the stability of the nominal closed-loop system. In this work, we will derive similar results but we will focus on time-delay systems, which are infinite dimensional, and PID control. Furthermore, we will use a different perturbation class and besides perturbations on the input and output channels, the framework presented here also includes a perturbation inside the (derivative part of the) controller. This additional perturbation is motivated by the implementation of the derivative using a finite-difference approximation.

Another important starting point is article [12], which examines the stabilizability of a controllable LTI system using state-derivative feedback control (i.e. using a control law of the form u(t)=Kx˙(t)u(t)=K\dot{x}(t) instead of the conventional state feedback u(t)=Kx(t))u(t)=Kx(t)). While the nominal system can be stabilized if and only if the system matrix of the open-loop system has no zero eigenvalue, the stability can be destroyed by infinitesimal perturbations if the open-loop system matrix has an odd number of eigenvalues in the open-right half plane (the so-called odd number limitation). However, if this number of eigenvalues is even, then robust stability in the presence of sufficiently small perturbations can always be achieved by adding a low-pass filter to the control law.

Finally, there exists an abundant literature that addresses fragility problems with respect to infinitesimal perturbations, that include, among others, [13, 14, 15, 16, 17] (and the references therein) discussing the sensitivity of stability of controlled systems with respect to feedback delay, [18, 19, 20] (and the references therein) discussing the sensitivity of stability of neutral functional differential equations with respect to infinitesimal (changes on the) delays, and [21] discussing the fragility of a gradient play dynamics model against a derivative approximation.

In this work we will extend the theoretical framework of [12] to systems with state delays controlled by PID output feedback, and complement it with an algorithm for the design of the controller gain matrices. More specifically, after introducing the considered set-up and illustrating the aforementioned sensitivity problems in Section 2, we derive conditions on the derivative gain matrix under which a stable closed-loop system loses stability under arbitrarily small feedback delay (Section 3.1) and under an arbitrary close finite-difference approximation of the derivative (section 3.2). In Section 4, we introduce the notion of strong stability, in analogy with the corresponding notion for neutral functional differential equations [18], which requires the closed-loop system to remain stable under sufficiently small perturbations. As in [12], we will show that a strongly stable closed-loop can be obtained by adding a low-pass filter to the control loop, under the condition that this low-pass filter does not destabilize the system, which induces an algebraic constraint on the derivative gain matrix. Subsequently, Section 5 presents a computational procedure to design strongly stabilizing PID controllers with low pass filtering. This procedure consists of minimizing the spectral abscissa of the nominal (i.e. without low-pass filter) closed-loop system in function of the elements of the feedback matrices under the aforementioned constraint on the derivative gain matrix. The presented method thus fits in the direct optimization framework as, for example, used in [22, 23]. This framework has the advantage that a particular structure of the feedback matrices can be easily incorporated in the design procedure. This comes, however, at the cost of having to solve a small non-convex non-smooth optimization problem. Section 6 presents some remarks on how to generalize the presented results to systems with input delay and to systems with bounded uncertainties on the system matrices and the state delays. Finally, Section 7 concludes the paper.

2 Problem statement

This work considers LTI systems with discrete state delays of the form:

{x˙(t)=A0x(t)+k=1KAkx(tτk)+Bu(t),y(t)=Cx(t)\left\{\begin{array}[]{l}\dot{x}(t)=A_{0}\,x(t)+\sum_{k=1}^{K}A_{k}\,x(t-\tau_{k})+B\,u(t),\\ y(t)=C\,x(t)\end{array}\right. (1)

with xnx\in\mathbb{R}^{n} the internal state, um\ u\in\mathbb{R}^{m} the input,yp\ y\in\mathbb{R}^{p} the output, 0<τ1<<τK<+0<\tau_{1}<\dots<\tau_{K}<+\infty discrete delays, A0A_{0}, A1A_{1}, …, AKn×nA_{K}\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}, Bn×mB\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times m} and Cp×nC\in\mathbb{R}^{p\times n}. Furthermore, without loss of generality, we will assume that BB is of full column rank and that CC is of full row rank. The goal is to design a PID output feedback control law

u(t)=Kpy(t)+Kdy˙(t)+Ki0ty(s)𝑑s,u(t)=K_{p}\,y(t)+K_{d}\,\dot{y}(t)+K_{i}\int_{0}^{t}y(s)ds, (2)

with KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} real-valued m×pm\times p matrices, that exponentially stabilizes the system. We will examine the exponential stability of the closed-loop system consisting of (1) and (2) using the following characteristic function

H0(λ):=det(λ[InBKdC00Iq][A0+BKpCBUiViC0]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk)H_{0}(\lambda):=\det\left(\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}-BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}+BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}-\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\right) (3)

with InI_{n} the identity matrix of size nn, q=rank(Ki)q=\operatorname{rank}(K_{i}) and Ki=UiViK_{i}=U_{i}V_{i}, a rank revealing decomposition with Uim×qU_{i}\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times q} of full column rank and Viq×pV_{i}\in\mathbb{R}^{q\times p} of full row rank. More specifically, the closed-loop system is exponentially stable if and only if all roots of (3) lie inside the open left half-plane bounded away from the imaginary axis. However, the following example illustrates that a stable closed-loop system can loose stability due to arbitrarily small implementation errors.

Example 2.1.

Consider the following second-order, single-input single-output system:

{x˙(t)=[0ω0ω00]x(t)+[10]u(t)y(t)=[10]x(t)\left\{\begin{array}[]{rcl}\dot{x}(t)&=&\begin{bmatrix}0&\omega_{0}\\ \omega_{0}&0\end{bmatrix}\ x(t)+\begin{bmatrix}-1\\ 0\end{bmatrix}\ u(t)\\[10.00002pt] y(t)&=&\begin{bmatrix}1&0\end{bmatrix}\ x(t)\end{array}\right.

with as corresponding transfer function s/(s2ω02).-s/(s^{2}-\omega_{0}^{2}). We want to control this system using the feedback law u(t)=kpy(t)+kdy˙(t)u(t)=k_{p}y(t)+k_{d}\dot{y}(t), that is nothing else than a PD controller. For this set-up, characteristic function (3) reduces to the following second-order polynomial:

(1+kd)λ2+kpλω02.(1+k_{d})\lambda^{2}+k_{p}\lambda-\omega_{0}^{2}.

It follows from the Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion that the roots of this polynomial lie inside the open left half-plane if (and only if) kd<1k_{d}<-1 and kp<0k_{p}<0. The system is thus stabilized by any control law with kd<1k_{d}<-1 and kp<0k_{p}<0. Next, we examine the effect of delayed feedback and a finite-difference approximation of the derivative on the stability of the closed-loop and we will show that any stable closed-loop system loses stability under these implementation errors, even when the size of the error is arbitrarily small.

As first implementation error, we consider delayed feedback, i.e. u(t)=kpy(tr)+kdy˙(tr)u(t)=k_{p}y(t-r)+k_{d}\dot{y}(t-r) with r>0r>0. In this case, the exponential stability of the closed-loop system is characterized by the roots of the following quasi-polynomial

(1+kdeλr)λ2+kpλeλrω02.(1+k_{d}e^{-\lambda r})\lambda^{2}+k_{p}\lambda e^{-\lambda r}-\omega_{0}^{2}. (4)

It follows from [24, Proposition 1.28] that (4) has a sequence of roots {λk}k=1\{\lambda_{k}\}_{k=1}^{\infty} which satisfies

limk|(λk)|=+ and limk(λk)=1rln(|kd|).\lim\limits_{k\to\infty}|\Im(\lambda_{k})|=+\infty\text{ and }\lim\limits_{k\to\infty}\Re(\lambda_{k})=\frac{1}{r}\ln\left(|k_{d}|\right).

Characteristic function (4) thus has (infinitely many) roots in the closed right half-plane for any kd<1k_{d}<-1 and any r>0r>0. Under delayed feedback, the closed-loop system is thus no longer stable, even if the feedback delay is arbitrarily small. As second implementation error, we consider a finite-difference approximation of the derivative:

y˙(t)y(t)y(tr)r,\dot{y}(t)\approx\frac{y(t)-y(t-r)}{r},

with r>0r>0. Such an approximation might be necessary if there is no sensor to measure the actual derivative. For the considered example, the exponential stability of the closed-loop system is now characterized by the roots of

f(λ):=λ2+(kp+kd1eλrr)λω02.f(\lambda):=\lambda^{2}+\left(k_{p}+k_{d}\frac{1-e^{-\lambda r}}{r}\right)\lambda-\omega_{0}^{2}. (5)

This characteristic function can be rewritten as f(λ)=λ2(f1(λ)f2(λ))f(\lambda)=\lambda^{2}\Big{(}f_{1}(\lambda)-f_{2}(\lambda)\Big{)} with

f1(λ):=1+kpλω02λ2 and f2(λ):=kd1eλrλr.f_{1}(\lambda):=1+\frac{k_{p}}{\lambda}-\frac{\omega_{0}^{2}}{\lambda^{2}}\text{\ \ and\ \ }f_{2}(\lambda):=-k_{d}\frac{1-e^{-\lambda r}}{\lambda r}.

As λ=0\lambda=0 is not a root of f()f(\cdot), the roots of (5) thus correspond to the crossings of f1()f_{1}(\cdot) and f2()f_{2}(\cdot) in the complex plane. Figure 1 shows these functions for λ\lambda real-valued and positive, kd<1k_{d}<-1, kp<0k_{p}<0 and r>0r>0. In this case, characteristic function (5) thus has a real-valued root in the right half-plane for all r>0r>0. Furthermore, this root moves to ++\infty as r0+r\to 0+. So also under an arbitrary accurate finite-difference approximation of the derivative, stability is lost. \diamond

λ\lambdaf1f_{1}kp+kp2+4ω022\frac{-k_{p}+\sqrt{k_{p}^{2}+4\omega_{0}^{2}}}{2}1
λ\lambdaf2f_{2}1kd-k_{d}r=0.05r=0.05r=0.02r=0.02
Figure 1: The functions f1(λ)f_{1}(\lambda) and f2(λ)f_{2}(\lambda) for λ\lambda real-valued and positive, kd<1k_{d}<-1, kp<0k_{p}<0 and r>0r>0.
Remark 2.1.

We consider (3) as characteristic function instead of

det(λ[InBKdC00Ip][A0+BKpCBKiC0]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk),\det\left(\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}-BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&I_{p}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}+BK_{p}C&BK_{i}\\ C&0\end{bmatrix}-\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\right),

which one would naively obtain by bringing the characteristic equation associated with the closed-loop system to linear form. This is motivated by the fact that this last equation might introduce roots in the origin that have no relation with with the actual asymptotic behavior of the closed-loop system. Furthermore, note that qq (=rank(Ki))\big{(}=\operatorname{rank}(K_{i})\big{)} corresponds to the minimal number of integrators needed to implement the (integral) control action. \diamond

3 Losing stability under arbitrarily small implementation errors

Motivated by Example 2.1, this section will derive conditions on the spectrum of BKdCBK_{d}C under which stability is lost under feedback delay (Section 3.1) and a finite-difference approximation of the derivative (Section 3.2), even when the size of the error is arbitrarily small.

3.1 Feedback delay

For studying the effect of delayed feedback, on a stabilizing feedback law of form (2), consider now the following system:

x˙(t)=A0x(t)+k=1KAkx(tτk)+Bu(tr),\dot{x}(t)=A_{0}\,x(t)+\sum_{k=1}^{K}A_{k}\,x(t-\tau_{k})+B\,u(t-r), (6)

derived from (1) by including a delay r>0r>0 in the input.

More precisely, the following proposition gives a sufficient condition on the spectrum of BKdCBK_{d}C under which stability is lost under delayed feedback with an arbitrarily small delay.

Proposition 3.1.

Assume that the gain matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} are such that the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is exponentially stable. If the spectral radius of BKdCBK_{d}C is larger than one, then the closed-loop of (6) and (2) is unstable for all r>0r>0.

Proof.

Under delayed feedback, the closed-loop system is unstable if

H1(λ;r):=det(λ([In00Iq][BKdC000]eλr)[A00ViC0][BKpCBUi00]eλrk=1K[Ak000]eλτk)\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}H_{1}(\lambda;r):=\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\left(\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda r}\right)-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}&0\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}\\ \hfill-\begin{bmatrix}BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda r}-\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\Bigg{)}\end{array} (7)

has at least one root inside the right half-plane. Note that (7) corresponds to the characteristic function of a neutral delay eigenvalue problem [24, Section 1.2]. It follows therefore from [24, Proposition 1.28] that for non-zero BKdCBK_{d}C, the characteristic function (7) has a sequence of characteristic roots {λk}k=1\{\lambda_{k}\}_{k=1}^{\infty} for which

limk|(λk)|=+ and limk(λk)=1rln(ρ(BKdC))\lim\limits_{k\to\infty}|\Im(\lambda_{k})|=+\infty\text{ and }\lim\limits_{k\to\infty}\Re(\lambda_{k})=\frac{1}{r}\ln\big{(}\rho(BK_{d}C)\big{)}

with ρ()\rho(\cdot) the spectral radius of its matrix argument. If ρ(BKdC)>1\rho(BK_{d}C)>1, then for all r>0r>0, characteristic function H1(;r)H_{1}(\cdot;r) has thus (infinitely many) characteristic roots in the right half-plane. ∎

3.2 Approximation of derivatives

Next, we derive a similar condition for the effect of using a finite-difference approximation instead of the actual derivative. The feedback signal now becomes:

u(t)=Kpy(t)+Kdy(t)y(tr)r+Ki0ty(s)𝑑s.u(t)=K_{p}\,y(t)+K_{d}\,\frac{y(t)-y(t-r)}{r}+K_{i}\int_{0}^{t}y(s)\,ds. (8)
Proposition 3.2.

Assume that the gain matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} are such that the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is exponentially stable. If at least one of the eigenvalues of BKdCBK_{d}C lies outside clos(S)\mathrm{clos}(S), with

S:={λ:(λ)(π,π)and(λ)<{(λ)cotan((λ)),(λ)(π, 0)(0,π),1,(λ)=0,}S:=\left\{\begin{array}[]{l}\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\ \Im(\lambda)\in(-\pi,\ \pi)\mathrm{\ and\ }\\ \hskip 45.52458pt\Re(\lambda)<\left\{\begin{array}[]{ll}\Im(\lambda)\ \mathrm{cotan}(\Im(\lambda)),&\Im(\lambda)\in(-\pi,\ 0)\cup(0,\ \pi),\\ 1,&\Im(\lambda)=0,\end{array}\right.\end{array}\right\}

then there exists a r^>0\hat{r}>0 such that the closed-loop of (1) and (8) is unstable for all r(0,r^)r\in(0,\hat{r})

Proof.

The stability of the closed-loop of (1) and (8) is characterized by the roots of

H2(λ;r):=det(λ([In00Iq][BKdC000]1eλrλr)[A+BKpCBUiViC0]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk).\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}H_{2}(\lambda;r):=\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\left(\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}\frac{1-e^{-\lambda r}}{\lambda r}\right)\\ \hfill-\begin{bmatrix}A+BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}-\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\Bigg{)}.\end{array} (9)

Multiplying H2(;r)H_{2}(\cdot;r) with rn+qr^{n+q} and introducing the change of variables λ^=λr\widehat{\lambda}=\lambda r, we obtain

G(λ^;r):=det(λ^[In00Iq][BKdC000](1eλ^)r[A+BKpCBUiViC0]k=1K[Ak000]reλ^(τk/r)).\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}G(\widehat{\lambda};r):=\det\Bigg{(}\widehat{\lambda}\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}\big{(}1-e^{-\widehat{\lambda}}\big{)}\\ \hfill-r\begin{bmatrix}A+BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}-\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}re^{-\widehat{\lambda}(\tau_{k}/r)}\Bigg{)}.\end{array}

As r0r\searrow 0, G(;r)G(\cdot;r) uniformly converges to

G~(λ^):=det(λ^[In00Iq][BKdC000](1eλ^))\ \widetilde{G}(\widehat{\lambda}):=\det\left(\widehat{\lambda}\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}\big{(}1-e^{-\widehat{\lambda}}\big{)}\right)

on compact regions in the open right half-plane. This function G~()\widetilde{G}(\cdot) has a root of multiplicity (at least) rr at the origin; the other roots of G~()\widetilde{G}(\cdot) are the solutions of the following nn equations

λ^λi(1eλ^)=0for i=1,,n,\widehat{\lambda}-\lambda_{i}\left(1-e^{-\widehat{\lambda}}\right)=0\quad\text{for }i=1,\dots,n,

in which {λi}i=1n\{\lambda_{i}\}_{i=1}^{n} are the eigenvalues of BKdCBK_{d}C. It follows from [12, Lemma A.1] that G~()\widetilde{G}(\cdot) has a root in the open right half-plane if (and only if) BKdCBK_{d}C has an eigenvalue outside clos(S)\mathrm{clos}(S). As G(;r)G(\cdot;r) uniformly converges to G~()\widetilde{G}(\cdot) on compact regions in the open right half-plane, it follows from a similar argument as in [12, Proposition 3.1 - Case 1] that there exist c>0c>0 and r^>0\hat{r}>0 such that the function G(;r)G(\cdot;r) has at least one root in the right half-plane {λ:(λ)>c}\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>c\} for all r(0,r^)r\in(0,\hat{r}). Because the roots of H2(;r)H_{2}(\cdot;r) correspond to the roots of G(;r)G(\cdot;r) divided by rr, H2(;r)H_{2}(\cdot;r) has at least one root in the right half-plane {λ:(λ)>c/r}\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>c/r\}. ∎

4 Strong stability

The previous section demonstrated that, under certain conditions on the spectrum of BKdCBK_{d}C, there exist arbitrarily small implementation errors that render a stable closed-loop system unstable. Or in other words, under certain conditions on the derivative gain matrix, the stability of the closed-loop system is sensitive with respect to infinitesimal perturbations. As observed in the proofs of the previous section, these perturbations introduced characteristic roots in the right half-plane that move to ++\infty as the perturbation size goes to zero. An intuitive way to avoid such right half-plane roots is to apply a low-pass filter to the derivative signal, leading to the following control law:

u(t)=Kpy(t)+Kdζ(t)+Ki0ty(s)𝑑su(t)=K_{p}y(t)+K_{d}\zeta(t)+K_{i}\int_{0}^{t}y(s)ds (10)

with

Tζ˙(t)+ζ(t)=y˙(t),T\dot{\zeta}(t)+\zeta(t)=\dot{y}(t),

and 1/T1/T the cut-off frequency. However, as observed in [10, Theorem 3] and [12, Secion 4.1] this low-pass filter might itself be destabilizing.

The following subsection shows that this low-pass filter does not destroy stability for sufficiently large cut-off frequencies if a certain algebraic constraint on KdK_{d} is fulfilled. Subsequently, Section 4.2 introduces the notion of strong stability, which requires the closed-loop to remain stable under sufficiently small perturbations. In that subsection we will also show that if the aforementioned constraint on KdK_{d} is fulfilled, then the closed-loop with low-pass filtering is strongly stable. Finally, these theoretical results and those of the previous section are illustrated using a third-order system in Section 4.3.

4.1 Losing stability under low-pass filtering

The following proposition shows that, under a particular condition on the spectrum of BKdCBK_{d}C, the stability of the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is sensitive with respect to low pass filtering of the derivative signal. However, this proposition also shows that if the real parts of the eigenvalues of BKdCBK_{d}C are smaller than 1, then stability of the closed-loop system is preserved when replacing control law (2) by control law (10) with TT sufficiently small.

Proposition 4.1.

Assume that the gain matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} are such that the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is exponentially stable. If BKdCBK_{d}C has an eigenvalue with real part larger than one, then there exists a T^>0\widehat{T}>0 such that the closed loop (1)-(10) is unstable for all T(0,T^)T\in(0,\widehat{T}). On the other hand, if BKdCInBK_{d}C-I_{n} is Hurwitz then there exists a T^>0\widehat{T}>0 such that the closed loop (1)-(10) is exponentially stable for all T(0,T^)T\in(0,\widehat{T}).

Proof.

The closed-loop stability of system (1)-(10) is characterized by the roots of

H3(λ;T):=det(λ([In00Iq]1λT+1[BKdC000])[A0+BKpCBUiViC0]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk).\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}H_{3}(\lambda;T):=\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\left(\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\frac{1}{\lambda T+1}\begin{bmatrix}BK_{d}C&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}\right)\\[10.0pt] \hfill-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}+BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}-\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\Bigg{)}.\end{array} (11)

If BKdCBK_{d}C has an eigenvalue with real part larger than one, then one can use a similar derivation as in the proof of Proposition 3.2 to show that there exist c>0c>0 and T^>0\widehat{T}>0 such that H3(;T)H_{3}(\cdot;T) has a root in the right half-plane {λ:(λ)>c/T}\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>c/T\} for all T(0,T^)T\in(0,\widehat{T}).

On the other hand, if BKdCInBK_{d}C-I_{n} is Hurwitz, then for each ϵ>0\epsilon>0 there exists a T^>0\widehat{T}>0 such that In(BKdC)/(λT+1)I_{n}-(BK_{d}C)/(\lambda T+1) is invertible for all λ\lambda that lie inside the right half-plane V:={λ:(λ)>ϵ}V:=\left\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>-\epsilon\right\} and all T(0,T^)T\in(0,\widehat{T}). This means that inside the right half-plane VV, H3(λ;T)=0H_{3}(\lambda;T)=0 is equivalent with

det(λ[In00Iq][(InBKdCλT+1)100Iq]([A0+BKpCBUiViC0]+k=1K[Ak000]eλτk))=0.\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}\left(I_{n}-\frac{BK_{d}C}{\lambda T+1}\right)^{-1}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\left(\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}+BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}+\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\right)\Bigg{)}=0.

A characteristic root, λ0\lambda_{0}, of H3(;T)H_{3}(\cdot;T) inside VV is thus bounded in modulus by

|λ0|supλV[(InBKdCλT+1)100Iq]([A0+BKpCBUiViC0]+k=1KAke(λ)τk):=Ξ<|\lambda_{0}|\leq\sup_{\lambda\in V}\left\|\begin{bmatrix}\left(I_{n}-\frac{BK_{d}C}{\lambda T+1}\right)^{-1}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\right\|\left(\left\|\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}+BK_{p}C&BU_{i}\\ V_{i}C&0\end{bmatrix}\right\|+\sum_{k=1}^{K}\|A_{k}\|e^{-\Re(\lambda)\tau_{k}}\right):=\Xi<\infty

Because H3(;T)H_{3}(\cdot;T) uniformly converges to H0()H_{0}(\cdot) on compact regions in the complex plane as T0T\searrow 0, there exists a T~T^\widetilde{T}\leq\widehat{T} such that for all T(0,T~)T\in(0,\widetilde{T})

maxλΩ|H3(λ;T)H0(λ)|minλΩ|H0(λ)|\max_{\lambda\in\partial\Omega}|H_{3}(\lambda;T)-H_{0}(\lambda)|\leq\min_{\lambda\in\partial\Omega}|H_{0}(\lambda)|

with Ω\Omega the intersection of VV and {λ:|λ|Ξ}\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:|\lambda|\leq\Xi\}. It now follows from Rouché’s theorem [25] that H3(;T)H_{3}(\cdot;T) and H0()H_{0}(\cdot) have the same number of zeros in Ω\Omega, and hence also in VV, for all T(0,T~)T\in(0,\widetilde{T}). The proposition now follows by choosing ϵ-\epsilon larger than the real part of the right-most root of H0()H_{0}(\cdot). ∎

4.2 Strongly stable closed-loop

In this subsection, we will show that if the low-pass filter itself is not destabilizing, then the closed-loop system (1)-(10) does not suffer from the same sensitivity problems as the ones encountered in Section 3. Furthermore, instead of restricting ourselves to delayed feedback and a finite-difference approximation of the derivative, we will consider all perturbations that fit the framework given in Figure 2, in which perturbation functions R1(;):×[0,+)m×mR_{1}(\cdot;\cdot):\mathbb{C}\times[0,+\infty)\mapsto\mathbb{C}^{m\times m}, R2(;):×[0,+)p×pR_{2}(\cdot;\cdot):\mathbb{C}\times[0,+\infty)\mapsto\mathbb{C}^{p\times p} and R3(;):×[0,+)p×pR_{3}(\cdot;\cdot):\mathbb{C}\times[0,+\infty)\mapsto\mathbb{C}^{p\times p} fulfill the following assumptions:

Assumption 4.2.
  1. 1.

    for every r0r\geq 0, the functions {λRi(λ;r)}i=13\left\{\lambda\mapsto R_{i}(\lambda;r)\right\}_{i=1}^{3} are meromorphic and for every λ\lambda\in\mathbb{C}, the functions {rRi(λ;r)}i=13\left\{r\mapsto R_{i}(\lambda;r)\right\}_{i=1}^{3} are continuous;

  2. 2.

    the matrices R1(λ;r)R_{1}(\lambda;r) and R3(λ;r)R_{3}(\lambda;r) are of full rank for all λ\lambda\in\mathbb{C} and all r0r\geq 0;

  3. 3.

    λRi(λ;0)I\lambda\mapsto R_{i}(\lambda;0)\equiv I for i=1,2,3i=1,2,3;

  4. 4.

    for every compact set Ω\Omega\subset\mathbb{C}, we have

    limr0+maxλΩRi(λ;r)I=0 for i=1,2,3\lim\limits_{r\rightarrow 0+}\max_{\lambda\in\Omega}\|R_{i}(\lambda;r)-I\|=0\text{ for }i=1,2,3

    i.e. the functions {λRi(λ;r)}i=13\left\{\lambda\mapsto R_{i}(\lambda;r)\right\}_{i=1}^{3} uniformly converge to the identity matrix on compact regions in the complex plane as rr goes to zero;

  5. 5.

    there exist constants M,N,r^>0M,N,\hat{r}>0 such that for all λ\lambda\in\mathbb{C} with (λ)N\Re(\lambda)\geq-N and for all r(0,r^)r\in(0,\hat{r})

    Ri(λ;r)M for i=1,2,3.\|R_{i}(\lambda;r)\|\leq M\text{ for }i=1,2,3.

The implementation errors studied in Section 3 fit this framework:

  • R1(λ;r)=eλrImR_{1}(\lambda;r)=e^{-\lambda r}I_{m} and R2(λ;r)=R3(λ;r)=IpR_{2}(\lambda;r)=R_{3}(\lambda;r)=I_{p} for (6);

  • R1(λ;r)=ImR_{1}(\lambda;r)=I_{m}, R2(λ,r)={1eλrλrIpλr0Ipλr=0R_{2}(\lambda,r)=\begin{cases}\frac{1-e^{-\lambda r}}{\lambda r}I_{p}&\lambda r\neq 0\\ I_{p}&\lambda r=0\end{cases} and R3(λ,r)=IpR_{3}(\lambda,r)=I_{p} for (9);

We note that also the low-pass filter in (10) can be interpreted in terms of this perturbation framework: R1(λ;r)=ImR_{1}(\lambda;r)=I_{m}, R2(λ,r)=Ip/(λr+1)R_{2}(\lambda,r)=I_{p}/\left(\lambda r+1\right) and R3(λ,r)=IpR_{3}(\lambda,r)=I_{p}.

C(IλA0k=1KAkeλτk)1BC\left(I\lambda-A_{0}-\sum\limits_{k=1}^{K}A_{k}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\right)^{-1}\!B\sumKp+KiλK_{p}+\frac{K_{i}}{\lambda}R3(λ;r3)R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})R1(λ;r1)R_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})λKd\lambda K_{d}R2(λ;r2)R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})IpλT+1\frac{I_{p}}{\lambda T+1}
Figure 2: Closed-loop description of the considered perturbation framework.

Next, in analogy with neutral functional differential equations, in which stability can be sensitive to arbitrarily small perturbations on the delays, we define strong stability as follows.

Definition 4.1.

A closed-loop system is strongly stable if for every set {Ri(λ;ri)}i=13\{R_{i}(\lambda;r_{i})\}_{i=1}^{3} that satisfies the five assumptions given above, there exists a r^>0\hat{r}>0 such that the corresponding perturbed closed-loop system is exponentially stable for all r1r_{1}, r2r_{2} and r3r_{3} in the open interval (0,r^)(0,\hat{r}).

Remark 4.3.

The notion of strong stability used here should not be confused with the one used in [26, Section 5.3], where strong stability refers to stabilization with controllers that themselves are stable.

In the following proposition, it is shown that a stable closed-loop system of the form (1)-(2) can be made strongly stable by including a low-pass filter with a sufficiently large cut-off frequency if the low-pass filter itself is not destabilizing.

Proposition 4.4.

Assume that the gain matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} are such that the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is exponentially stable. If BKdCInBK_{d}C-I_{n} is Hurwitz, then the closed-loop of (1) and (10) is strongly stable for sufficiently small TT.

Proof.

By incorporating the perturbations {Ri(λ;ri)}i=13\left\{R_{i}(\lambda;r_{i})\right\}_{i=1}^{3} in (11), the characteristic function becomes

H4(λ;T,r1,r2,r3):=det(λ[In00Iq][A0000]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk[BR1(λ;r1)00Iq][Kp+λλT+1KdR2(λ;r2)UiVi0][R3(λ;r3)C00Iq])\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}H_{4}(\lambda;T,r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}):=\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}-\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\\ \hfill-\begin{bmatrix}BR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}K_{p}+\frac{\lambda}{\lambda T+1}K_{d}R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})&U_{i}\\ V_{i}&0\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})C&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\Bigg{)}\end{array}

We choose numbers NN and r^\hat{r} according to item 5 of 4.2. Furthermore, if BKdCIpBK_{d}C-I_{p} is Hurwitz and the closed-loop (1)-(2) is stable, then it follows from Proposition 4.1 that we can choose a sufficiently small TT such that there exists a c(0,N)c\in(0,N) for which H3(λ;T)H_{3}(\lambda;T) has no root in V:={λ:(λ)>c}V:=\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>-c\}. Subsequently, for all r1r_{1}, r2r_{2} and r3r_{3} in the interval (0,r^)(0,\hat{r}), the characteristic roots of H4(λ;T,r1,r2,r3)H_{4}(\lambda;T,r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}) in VV are bounded in modulus by

|λ0|supλVA0+k=1KAke(λ)τk+[BR1(λ;r1)00Iq][Kp+λλT+1KdR2(λ;r2)UiVi0][R3(λ;r3)C00Iq]:=Ξ<.\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}|\lambda_{0}|\leq\sup_{\lambda\in V}\|A_{0}\|+\sum_{k=1}^{K}\|A_{k}\|e^{-\Re(\lambda)\tau_{k}}+\\[7.0pt] \hfill\left\|\begin{bmatrix}BR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}K_{p}+\frac{\lambda}{\lambda T+1}K_{d}R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})&U_{i}\\ V_{i}&0\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})C&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\right\|:=\Xi<\infty.\end{array}

By using Rouché’s theorem as in Proposition 4.1, it follows that for sufficiently small r1r_{1}, r2r_{2} and r3r_{3} the functions H4(;T,r1,r2,r3)H_{4}(\cdot;T,r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}) and H3(λ;T)H_{3}(\lambda;T) have the same number of roots in the right half-plane VV, namely zero. ∎

Note that if CB=0m×pCB=0_{m\times p}, i.e. the relative degree111By interpreting the internal dynamics of system (1) as an infinite dimensional ordinary differential equation on the head-tail state space 𝒳:=n×𝒞([τK,0],n)\mathcal{X}:=\mathbb{R}^{n}\times\mathcal{C}([-\tau_{K},0],\mathbb{R}^{n}) equipped with the inner product (x1,ϕ1),(x2,ϕ2)𝒳=x1Tx2+τK0ϕ1(s)Tϕ2(s)𝑑s\big{\langle}(x_{1},\phi_{1}),(x_{2},\phi_{2})\big{\rangle}_{\mathcal{X}}=x_{1}^{T}x_{2}+\int_{-\tau_{K}}^{0}\phi_{1}(s)^{T}\phi_{2}(s)\,ds, the relative degree of each input-output channel is defined as in [27, Definition 1.3]. of each input-output channel of system (1) is larger than one, then stability implies strong stability even without low pass filtering, as shown in the following proposition.

Proposition 4.5.

Assume that the gain matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} are such that the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is exponentially stable. If CB=0m×pCB=0_{m\times p}, then the closed-loop of (1) and (2) is also strongly stable.

Proof.

By incorporating the perturbations {Ri(λ;ri)}i=13\left\{R_{i}(\lambda;r_{i})\right\}_{i=1}^{3} in (3), the characteristic function becomes

H5(λ;r1,r2,r3):=det(λ[InBR1(λ;r1)KdR2(λ;r2)R3(λ;r3)C00Iq][A0000]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk[BR1(λ;r1)00Iq][KpUiVi0][R3(λ;r3)C00Iq]).\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}H_{5}(\lambda;r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}):=\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}-BR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})K_{d}R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})C&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}-\\ \hfill\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}-\begin{bmatrix}BR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}K_{p}&U_{i}\\ V_{i}&0\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})C&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\Bigg{)}.\end{array}

Because CB=0m×pCB=0_{m\times p}, the Weinstein–Aronszajn identity implies that

Q(λ;r1,r2,r3):=BR1(λ;r1)KdR2(λ;r2)R3(λ;r3)CQ(\lambda;r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}):=BR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})K_{d}R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})C

is nilpotent for all r1,r2,r3>0r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}>0, all λ\lambda\in\mathbb{C} and all permissible perturbations. This has as a consequence that IQ(λ;r1,r2,r3)I-Q(\lambda;r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}) is invertible. Further, by the last item of 4.2 there exist r^>0\hat{r}>0 and c>0c>0 such that the norm of (IQ(λ;r1,r2,r3))1\big{(}I-Q(\lambda;r_{1},r_{2},r_{3})\big{)}^{-1} is finite in the right half-plane V:={λ:(λ)>c}V:=\left\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>-c\right\} for all r1r_{1}, r2r_{2} and r3r_{3} in the interval (0,r^)(0,\hat{r}). Using a similar approach as in the proof of Proposition 4.1, one can show that the modulus of a characteristic root of H5(;r1,r2,r3)H_{5}(\cdot;r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}) in the right half-plane VV is finite. Furthermore, because H5(;r1,r2,r3)H_{5}(\cdot;r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}) uniformly converges to H0()H_{0}(\cdot) on compact regions in the complex plane, the proposition now follows from a similar argument as in the proof of Proposition 4.1. ∎

Next, we present a condition under which there does not exist a feedback matrix KdK_{d} such that the closed-loop system (1)-(10) is strongly stable.

Proposition 4.6.

If for given gain matrices KpK_{p} and KiK_{i}, and Kd=0m×pK_{d}=0_{m\times p}, the characteristic function H0()H_{0}(\cdot) has an odd number of roots in the closed right half-plane then there does not exist a matrix KdK_{d} such that the closed-loop system (1)-(2) is stable and BKdCIBK_{d}C-I is Hurwitz; and as a consequence there does not exist a matrix KdK_{d} such that the closed-loop system (1)-(10) is strongly stable for all sufficiently small TT.

Proof.

We use a similar continuation argument as in [12, Theorems 5.1]. More specifically, assume that KdK_{d}^{\star} is such that the closed-loop (1)-(2) is stable. Consider now the feedback law: u(t)=Kpy(t)+kKdy˙(t)+Ki0ty(s)𝑑su(t)=K_{p}y(t)+kK_{d}^{\star}\dot{y}(t)+K_{i}\int_{0}^{t}y(s)\,ds for k[0,1]k\in[0,1]. For k=0k=0 the corresponding characteristic function has an odd number of roots in right half-plane, while for k=1k=1 there are no right half-plane roots. By increasing kk from 0 to 1, all roots are thus moved to the left half-plane. Furthermore, if we vary kk these characteristic roots move in complex conjugate pairs as all considered matrices are real-valued. Therefore, to bring an odd number of characteristic roots to the left half-plane, at least one root has to pass through either the origin or infinity. The former is however not possible as a characteristic root in the origin is invariant with respect to changes in kk and the closed-loop system is stable for k=1k=1. On the other hand, a root crossing through infinity means that there exists a k^(0,1)\hat{k}\in(0,1) such that det(Ik^BKdC)=0\det(I-\hat{k}BK_{d}^{\star}C)=0, which implies that BKdCBK_{d}^{\star}C has a real-valued root 1/k^>11/\hat{k}>1. The second part of the proposition now follows from Proposition 4.1. ∎

We conclude the subsection with a comment on parametric uncertainty.

Remark 4.7.

If the control law (10) achieves strong stability, then the asymptotic stability is robust not only against infinitesimal perturbations satisfying Assumption 4.2 and visualized in Figure 2 but also against small perturbation on system matrices A0,,AKA_{0},\ldots,A_{K}, BB, CC and delays τ1,,τK\tau_{1},\ldots,\tau_{K}. This result directly follows from the strong stability criterion in Proposition 4.4.

4.3 Illustration of theory using a third-order SISO system

In this subsection, we illustrate the results of Sections 4.2 and 3 using the following third-order, single-input single-output system

{x˙(t)=[11/31100010]x(t)+[200]u(t)y(t)=[0.500.5]x(t)\left\{\begin{array}[]{rcl}\dot{x}(t)&=&\begin{bmatrix}-1&1/3&1\\ 1&0&0\\ 0&1&0\end{bmatrix}x(t)+\begin{bmatrix}2\\ 0\\ 0\end{bmatrix}u(t)\\[20.075pt] y(t)&=&\begin{bmatrix}0.5&0&0.5\end{bmatrix}x(t)\end{array}\right. (12)

with corresponding transfer function

s2+1s3+s2(1/3)s1.\frac{s^{2}+1}{s^{3}+s^{2}-(1/3)s-1}.

It is verified in Appendix A that this system can not be stabilized with either P or PI output feedback control. However, as shown next, this system can be stabilized with a PD output feedback controller of the following form

u(t)=kpy(t)+kdy˙(t),u(t)=k_{p}y(t)+k_{d}\dot{y}(t), (13)

with kpk_{p}\in\mathbb{R} and kdk_{d}\in\mathbb{R}. The characteristic function H0()H_{0}(\cdot) reduces in this case to the following polynomial of degree three:

(1kd)λ3+(1kp)λ2+(kd(1/3))λkp1.(1-k_{d})\lambda^{3}+(1-k_{p})\lambda^{2}+\left(-k_{d}-(1/3)\right)\lambda-k_{p}-1. (14)

Figure 3 shows the number of right half-plane roots of this polynomial in function of kpk_{p} and kdk_{d} and can be understood as follows. By the Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion for polynomials of degree three, (14) has no roots in the closed right half-plane for (kp,kd)(k_{p},k_{d}) in the set

{(kp,kd):kd<1,kp<1 and kd<13+23kp}{(kp,kd):kd>1,kp>1 and kd<13+23kp}.\{(k_{p},k_{d}):k_{d}<1,k_{p}<-1\text{ and }k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}\}\cup\{(k_{p},k_{d}):k_{d}>1,k_{p}>1\text{ and }k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}\}.

Further, the number of roots in the closed right half-plane can only change in two ways. Firstly, eigenvalues can cross the imaginary axis. We therefore examine the pairs (kp,kd)(k_{p},k_{d}) for which (14) has a root on the imaginary axis:

ȷω3(1kd)ω2(1kp)ȷω(kd+13)kp1=0.-\jmath\omega^{3}(1-k_{d})-\omega^{2}(1-k_{p})-\jmath\omega(k_{d}+\frac{1}{3})-k_{p}-1=0.

By splitting the real and imaginary part we get:

ω2(1kp)kp1\displaystyle-\omega^{2}(1-k_{p})-k_{p}-1 =0\displaystyle=0
ω3(1kd)ω(kd+(1/3))\displaystyle-\omega^{3}(1-k_{d})-\omega(k_{d}+(1/3)) =0.\displaystyle=0.

For kp=1k_{p}=-1 and kdk_{d} arbitrary, (14) thus has an root at the origin (ω=0\omega^{\star}=0) and for kp(,1)(1,)k_{p}\in(-\infty,-1)\cup(1,\infty) and kd=13+23kpk_{d}=\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}, (14) has a pair of complex conjugate roots on the imaginary axis at ω=±kp11kp\omega^{\star}=\pm\sqrt{\frac{-k_{p}-1}{1-k_{p}}}. Furthermore, the crossing direction at these critical parameter values follows from:

(λ)kp|λ=ȷω=(ω2+13ω2(1kd)+2(1kp)ȷω(kd+1/3)).\left.\frac{\partial\Re(\lambda)}{\partial k_{p}}\right|_{\lambda=\jmath\omega^{\star}}=\Re\left(\frac{-{\omega^{\star}}^{2}+1}{-3{\omega^{\star}}^{2}(1-k_{d})+2(1-k_{p})\jmath{\omega}^{\star}-(k_{d}+1/3)}\right).

Secondly, the number of right half-plane roots can change by roots moving over infinity at kd=1k_{d}=1. More precisely, for kd=1ϵk_{d}=1-\epsilon and ϵ\epsilon sufficiently small, (14) has a root at approximately 1+kpϵ\frac{-1+k_{p}}{\epsilon}. For kp>1k_{p}>1, there thus is a root that moves from the right half-plane to the left half-plane as kdk_{d} increases from 11- to 1+1+. For kp<1k_{p}<1, this root moves in the opposite direction.

The closed-loop system (12)-(13) is thus stable for (kp,kd)(k_{p},k_{d}) inside the set

{(kp,kd):kd<1,kp<1 and kd<13+23kp}{(kp,kd):kd>1,kp>1 and kd<13+23kp}.\{(k_{p},k_{d}):k_{d}<1,k_{p}<-1\text{ and }k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}\}\cup\{(k_{p},k_{d}):k_{d}>1,k_{p}>1\text{ and }k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}\}.

However, from the theory developed in Sections 3 and 4.1, it follows that for |kd|>1|k_{d}|>1 stability is lost under arbitrarily small feedback delay and that for kd>1k_{d}>1 stability is lost under both a finite-difference approximation of the derivative and the inclusion of a low-pass filter. Furthermore, it can be shown that when considering these three implementation errors and assuming that these errors are sufficiently small, the stability of the closed-loop system without low-pass filtering is only preserved for (kp,kd)(k_{p},k_{d}) in the set

{(kp,kd):kd>1,kp<1 and kd<13+23kp}.\left\{(k_{p},k_{d}):k_{d}>-1,k_{p}<-1\text{ and }k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}\right\}.

If we consider the perturbation class introduced in Section 4.2, it follows from Proposition 4.4 that the closed-loop system with low pass filtering is strongly stable if (kp,kd)(k_{p},k_{d}) lies in the set,

{(kp,kd):kp<1 and kd<13+23kp}.\left\{(k_{p},k_{d}):k_{p}<-1\text{ and }k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}\right\}.

These different stability regions are indicated on Figure 3 using hatching.

Figure 3 can also be used to illustrate Proposition 4.6.

  • For kp>1k_{p}>-1 and kd=0k_{d}=0, the characteristic function has one root in the right half-plane. For fixed kpk_{p}, this root can be brought to the left half-plane by increasing kdk_{d} until 1<kd<13+23kp1<k_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}. However, as expected from the proof of Proposition 4.6, the root moves from the right to the left half-plane via infinity. As a consequence, for the stabilizing values of kdk_{d}, the matrix BkdCBk_{d}C has a real eigenvalue larger than one. The corresponding closed-loop system is hence not strongly stable. Furthermore, adding a low-pass filter to the control loop will not fix this robustness problem as the low pass filter itself is destabilizing.

  • On the other hand, for kp<1k_{p}<-1 and kd=0k_{d}=0, the characteristic function has two roots in the right half-plane. For fixed kpk_{p}, these two right half-plane roots can be brought to the left half-plane via the imaginary axis by decreasing kdk_{d} until kd<13+23kpk_{d}<\frac{1}{3}+\frac{2}{3}k_{p}. It now follows from Proposition 4.4 that the closed-loop system with loop pass filtering is strongly stable.

Finally, the uncontrolled system (kp=0k_{p}=0 and kd=0k_{d}=0) is unstable and has an odd number of right half-plane roots. Thus, in a strongly stabilizing PD controller with low pass filtering the kpk_{p} and kdk_{d} parameters can be understood as follows. The P part brings an additional root to the closed right half-plane, i.e. the P part on its own is destabilizing. The D part subsequently moves these two right half-plane roots to the left half-plane via the imaginary axis.

kpk_{p}kdk_{d}(-1,-13\frac{1}{3})(-1,1)(1,1)22ω=0\omega=0ω=1\omega=1ω=\omega=\inftyω=1\omega=13100PD controller is stabilizing but not robust against any perturbation type of Sections 3 and 4.1PD controller is stabilizing and robust against the perturbations of Sections 3 and 4.1PD controller with low pass filtering is strongly stabilizingCrossing via ”infinity”Crossing at originCrossing via imaginary axis at ω=±kp1kp+1\omega=\pm\sqrt{\frac{-k_{p}-1}{-k_{p}+1}}
Figure 3: The number of roots of (14) in the closed right half-plane in function of kpk_{p} and kdk_{d} (grey circles). Transitions between the different regions correspond to eigenvalues crossing via “infinity” (full line), the origin (dot dashed) or the imaginary axis (dot dot dashed). The parameter pairs for which the PD controller is stable but not robust against any of the three types of perturbations discussed in Sections 3 and 4.1, for which the PD controller is stable and robust against these perturbations, and for which the PD controller with low-pass filtering is strongly stable are indicated using hatching.

5 Design procedure for strongly stabilizing controllers

In this section, we describe a computational procedure to design a PID output feedback controller with a low pass filtering of the derivative signal which strongly stabilizes system (1). To synthesize such controllers, we will minimize the spectral abscissa of (3), i.e. the real part of its right-most characteristic root, in function of elements of the feedback matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i}, under the constraint that BKdCInBK_{d}C-I_{n} is Hurwitz. This leads to the following design procedure:

  1. 1.

    choose initial controller matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i};

  2. 2.

    if α(BKdC)=max{(λ):det(InλBKdC)=0}>0.9\alpha(BK_{d}C)=\max\{\Re(\lambda):\det(I_{n}\lambda-BK_{d}C)=0\}>0.9, then re-scale KdK_{d} by 0.9/α(BKdC)0.9/\alpha(BK_{d}C)

  3. 3.

    minimize the spectral abscissa of (3)

    f(Kp,Kd,Ki)=maxλ{(λ):det(λ(InBKdC)A0k=1KAkeλτkBKpCBKiCλ)=0}\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}f(K_{p},K_{d},K_{i})=\max_{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}}\Big{\{}\Re(\lambda):\ \det\Big{(}\lambda(I_{n}-BK_{d}C)-A_{0}-\\ \hfill\sum_{k=1}^{K}A_{k}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}-BK_{p}C-\frac{BK_{i}C}{\lambda}\Big{)}=0\Big{\}}\end{array}

    as function of the elements of KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} under the constraint that

    α(BKdC)=max{(λ):det(λImBKdC)=0}<1;\alpha(BK_{d}C)=\max\{\Re(\lambda):\det(\lambda I_{m}-BK_{d}C)=0\}<1;
  4. 4.

    choose a sufficiently small TT such that (1)-(10) is exponentially stable.

The constraint in step 3 ensures that the condition in Proposition 4.4 is fulfilled. This constraint is handled using a penalty method. More precisely, we minimize

f(Kp,Kd,Ki)+tmax(0,α(BKdC)1),f(K_{p},K_{d},K_{i})+t\max\left(0,\alpha(BK_{d}C)-1\right), (15)

in the elements of the control matrices, where tt is increased until the resulting KdK_{d} fulfills the constraint. Note, however, that this function is in general non-convex and, as a consequence, it might have multiple local optima. Therefore, to avoid ending up at a bad local minimum, we restart the optimization procedure from several initial points.

Next, we illustrate the effectiveness of this method on three example problems.

Example 5.1.

We start with designing a controller for the system examined in Section 4.3. As initial parameters we use (kp,kd)=(1.5,1.2)(k_{p},k_{d})=(1.5,1.2) and t=102t=10^{2}. This results in (kp,kd)=(1.08015,1.04045)(k_{p},k_{d})=(-1.08015,-1.04045). It thus follows from Figure 3 that the resulting controller with low-pass filtering is strongly stable for sufficiently small TT. To indicate the importance of rescaling the initial KdK_{d} and the constraint in step 3, we redesign the controller starting from the same initial parameters without these components. This results in the controller (kp,kd)=(1.26832,1.01777)(k_{p},k_{d})=(1.26832,1.01777). The closed-loop system without filter is now stable, but stability is lost when adding the low pass filter. \diamond

Example 5.2.

Secondly, we consider a system of form (1) with n=6n=6, m=3m=3, p=2p=2 and K=3K=3. The system matrices and delays are given in Appendix B. The open-loop system has 5 right half-plane poles, the right-most of which are a complex conjugate pair located at 2.607±ȷ2.1442.607\pm\jmath 2.144. After running the design procedure starting from a zero initial controller and t=105t=10^{5} we obtained the feedback matrices given in Appendix B. The closed-loop system with low-pass filter (T=107T=10^{-7}) is now exponentially stable with a decay rate of 0.1768. Furthermore, the real part of all eigenvalues of BKdCBK_{d}C is smaller than one, thus the closed-loop with low pass filter is strongly stable. \diamond

Example 5.3.

Finally, as last example, we consider the stabilization of a quadcopter around its equilibrium point, i.e. hovering at a fixed position and a fixed orientation of the principal axes. We use the twelve dimensional linearized model given in [28, Equations (6.4-6.7)] for the parameters given in [28, Section 4]. By choosing an appropriate output matrix CC we obtain the following system of form (1):

{Δx˙(t)=[03×3I303×303×303×303×3[0g0g00000]03×303×303×303×3I303×303×303×303×3]Δx(t)+[03×4[000000002bΘ0m2bΘ0m2bΘ0m2bΘ0m]03×4[02lbΩ0Ix02lbΩ0Ix2lbΩ0Iy02lbΩ0Iy02dΩ0Iz2dΩ0Iz2dΩ0Iz2dΩ0Iz]]Δu(t)y(t)=[I303×103×103×103×303×103×103×101×311101×300003×303×103×103×1I303×103×103×101×300001×3001]Δx(t)\left\{\begin{array}[]{rl}\Delta\dot{x}(t)=&\begin{bmatrix}0_{3\times 3}&I_{3}&0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}\\ 0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}&\begin{bmatrix}0&-g&0\\ g&0&0\\ 0&0&0\end{bmatrix}&0_{3\times 3}\\ 0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}&I_{3}\\ 0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 3}\end{bmatrix}\Delta x(t)+\begin{bmatrix}0_{3\times 4}\\ \begin{bmatrix}0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0\\ \frac{-2b\Theta_{0}}{m}&\frac{-2b\Theta_{0}}{m}&\frac{-2b\Theta_{0}}{m}&\frac{-2b\Theta_{0}}{m}\\ \end{bmatrix}\\ 0_{3\times 4}\\ \begin{bmatrix}0&\frac{2lb\Omega_{0}}{I_{x}}&0&\frac{-2lb\Omega_{0}}{I_{x}}\\ \frac{2lb\Omega_{0}}{I_{y}}&0&\frac{-2lb\Omega_{0}}{I_{y}}&0\\ \frac{-2d\Omega_{0}}{I_{z}}&\frac{2d\Omega_{0}}{I_{z}}&\frac{-2d\Omega_{0}}{I_{z}}&\frac{2d\Omega_{0}}{I_{z}}\\ \end{bmatrix}\end{bmatrix}\Delta u(t)\\[55.0pt] y(t)=&\begin{bmatrix}I_{3}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}\\ 0_{1\times 3}&1&1&1&0_{1\times 3}&0&0&0\\ 0_{3\times 3}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}&I_{3}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}&0_{3\times 1}\\ 0_{1\times 3}&0&0&0&0_{1\times 3}&0&0&1\end{bmatrix}\,\Delta x(t)\end{array}\right. (16)

with g=9.8ms2g=9.8\,\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}}, m=1.32kgm=1.32\,\mathrm{kg}, b=1.5108105kgmb=1.5108\cdot 10^{-5}\,\mathrm{kg\,m}, l=0.214ml=0.214\,\mathrm{m}, Ix=9.3103kgm2I_{x}=9.3\cdot 10^{-3}\,\mathrm{kg\,m^{2}}, Iy=9.2103kgm2I_{y}=9.2\cdot 10^{-3}\,\mathrm{kg\,m^{2}}, Iz=151102kgm2I_{z}=151\cdot 10^{-2}\,\mathrm{kg\,m^{2}}, d=4.406107kgm2s1d=4.406\cdot 10^{-7}\,\mathrm{kg\,m^{2}\,s^{-1}} and Ω0=(mg/(4b))\Omega_{0}=\sqrt{(mg/(4b))}. Starting from ten random initial parameter values and fixing tt to 10210^{2}, resulted in ten different PID controllers with low-pass filtering that each strongly stabilize (16) for sufficiently large cut-off frequencies. Next, we examine the controller with the best performance, i.e. the controller matrices that resulted in the smallest f(Kp,Kd,Ki)f(K_{p},K_{d},K_{i}) and which is given in Appendix C, and as cut-off frequency we choose 1/T=106s11/T=10^{6}\ \mathrm{s}^{-1}. By computing the characteristic roots of (11), we find that the closed-loop system is exponentially stable with a decay rate of 0.75260.7526. Figure 4 shows these characteristic roots. As expected, four characteristic roots lie at approximately λi1T\frac{\lambda_{i}-1}{T} with λi\lambda_{i} the eigenvalues of KdCBK_{d}CB. The real part of almost all remaining roots is approximately equal to the spectral abscissa, which is a typical phenomenon for the direct optimization framework. \diamond

Refer to caption
Refer to caption
Figure 4: Blue crosses: roots of the instance of characteristic function (11) associated with the closed-loop quadcopter system for the controller matrices that minimized f(Kp,Kd,Ki)f(K_{p},K_{d},K_{i}) and 1T=106s1\frac{1}{T}=10^{6}\ \mathrm{s}^{-1}. In the right-hand panel we zoomed in on the rightmost characteristic roots.
Red circles: eigenvalues of KdCBI4T\frac{K_{d}CB-I_{4}}{T}.

6 Extensions

We present two extensions of the previous results. First, we consider systems which include an input delay in the nominal model. Second, we briefly comment on incorporating bounded (non-vanishing) perturbations on the system matrices and nominal delays, as so far we dealt with analyzing and resolving the sensitivity of stability with respect to infinitesimal perturbations (see also Remark 4.7).

6.1 Systems with input delay

This subsection considers systems with a fixed input delay τu>0\tau_{u}>0,

{x˙(t)=A0x(t)+k=1KAkx(tτk)+Bu(tτu),y(t)=Cx(t).\left\{\begin{array}[]{l}\dot{x}(t)=A_{0}\,x(t)+\sum_{k=1}^{K}A_{k}\,x(t-\tau_{k})+B\,u(t-\tau_{u}),\\ y(t)=C\,x(t).\end{array}\right. (17)

The stability of the nominal closed-loop system is now characterized by the roots of (7), where rr is fixed to τu\tau_{u}. It thus follows from a similar argument as in the proof of Proposition 3.1, that ρ(BKdC)<1\rho(BK_{d}C)<1 is a necessary condition for the exponential stability of the nominal system. In the following proposition, we examine strong stability for systems with input delay. In contrast to systems without input delay, there is now no additional constraint (besides stabilizing the system) on KdK_{d} to achieve strong stability using a low pass filter with a sufficiently large cut-off frequency.

Proposition 6.1.

Assume that the gain matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} are such that the closed-loop system (17)-(2) is exponentially stable. Then the closed-loop of (17) and (8) is strongly stable.

Proof.

By incorporating the low-pass filter and the perturbations {Ri(λ;ri)}i=13\{R_{i}(\lambda;r_{i})\}_{i=1}^{3}, the characteristic function becomes:

H6(λ;T,r1,r2,r3):=det(λ[In00Iq][A0000]k=1K[Ak000]eλτk[BR1(λ;r1)eλτu00Iq][Kp+λλT+1KdR2(λ;r2)UiVi0][R3(λ;r3)C00Iq]).\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}H_{6}(\lambda;T,r_{1},r_{2},r_{3}):=\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}A_{0}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}-\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}A_{k}&0\\ 0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda\tau_{k}}\\ \hfill\begin{bmatrix}BR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})e^{-\lambda\tau_{u}}&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}K_{p}+\frac{\lambda}{\lambda T+1}K_{d}R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})&U_{i}\\ V_{i}&0\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})C&0\\ 0&I_{q}\end{bmatrix}\Bigg{)}.\end{array}

We have already established that the exponential stability of the closed-loop system of (17) and (2) requires ρ(BKdC)<1\rho(BK_{d}C)<1. Next, we will show that the condition ρ(BKdC)<1\rho(BK_{d}C)<1 implies that the low-pass filter itself is not destabilizing for R1(λ;r1)=R2(λ;r2)=R3(λ;r3)=IR_{1}(\lambda;r_{1})=R_{2}(\lambda;r_{2})=R_{3}(\lambda;r_{3})=I. If ρ(BKdC)<1\rho(BK_{d}C)<1, there exist ϵ>0\epsilon>0 and T^>0\hat{T}>0 such that ρ(BKdCeλτu1λT+1)<1\rho\left(BK_{d}Ce^{-\lambda\tau_{u}}\frac{1}{\lambda T+1}\right)<1 for all λV:={λ:(λ)>ϵ}\lambda\in V:=\left\{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}:\Re(\lambda)>-\epsilon\right\} and all T(0,T^)T\in(0,\hat{T}). This implies that IBKdCeλτu1λT+1I-BK_{d}Ce^{-\lambda\tau_{u}}\frac{1}{\lambda T+1} is invertible on VV. It now follows from a similar argument as in Proposition 4.1 that the low-pass filter does not destabilize the system for sufficiently small TT. Strong stability follows from a similar argument as in Proposition 4.4. ∎

The proposition above shows that if a PID controller stabilizes the system (17), then including a low-pass filter with a sufficiently large cut-off frequency makes the closed-loop system strongly stable. It thus suffices to design controller matrices KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i} such that the closed-loop system of (17) and (2) is stable. Such controller matrices can, for instance, be obtained using the method presented in [22]. More precisely, suitable controller matrices are derived by minimizing the spectral abscissa of the closed-loop system under the constraint that ρ(BKdC)<1\rho(BK_{d}C)<1. As in Section 5, this constraint is incorporated in the cost function. However, instead of including a penalty term, a logbarier method is used to enforce that the constraint is fulfilled in each iteration step.

Example 6.1.

We revisit Example 5.3 with a (fixed) feedback delay of τu=0.1s\tau_{u}=0.1\mathrm{s}. Although ρ(BKdC)=0.4925<1\rho(BK_{d}C)=0.4925<1 for the controller obtained in Section 5, the closed-loop system is unstable for τu=0.1s\tau_{u}=0.1\mathrm{s}, both with and without filtering. By applying the procedure of [22] starting from this controller, we arrive at a stable closed-loop system with an exponentially decay rate (with T=106sT=10^{-6}\mathrm{s}) of less than 0.0100 and ρ(BKdC)=0.9990<1\rho(BK_{d}C)=0.9990<1. However, when starting from another initial controller, created by swapping the initial KiK_{i} and KdK_{d}, we arrived at an exponentially decay rate (with T=106sT=10^{-6}\mathrm{s}) of 1.1797, illustrating the non-convexity of the optimization problem and the importance of the starting values. The corresponding controller matrices are given in Appendix C.

6.2 Bounded uncertainties on system matrices and state delays

In this subsection, we generalize the algorithm presented in Section 5 to systems with bounded uncertainties on the system matrices and the state delays. More specifically, we consider LL real-valued matrix uncertainties

δ1ϱ1×ς1,,δLϱL×ςL\delta_{1}\in\mathbb{R}^{\varrho_{1}\times\varsigma_{1}},\dots,\delta_{L}\in\mathbb{R}^{\varrho_{L}\times\varsigma_{L}}

that are bounded in Frobenius norm by 1. For notational convenience we denote the combination of uncertainties as δ=(δ1,,δL)\delta=\big{(}\delta_{1},\dots,\delta_{L}\big{)}, and the set of all admissible uncertainty values as 𝒟\mathcal{D}:

𝒟={(δ1,,δL):δlϱl×ςl and δlF1 for l=1,,L}\mathcal{D}=\left\{(\delta_{1},\dots,\delta_{L}):\delta_{l}\in\mathbb{R}^{\varrho_{l}\times\varsigma_{l}}\text{ and }\|\delta_{l}\|_{F}\leq 1\text{ for }l=1,\dots,L\right\}

These matrix uncertainties affect the system matrices in an affine way:

R~(δ)=R+l=1LGR,lδlHR,l\widetilde{R}(\delta)=R+\sum_{l=1}^{L}G_{R,l}\delta_{l}H_{R,l}

with RR the nominal value of the system matrix. The matrices GR,lG_{R,l} and HR,lH_{R,l} are real-valued and allow to target specific blocks or parameters in the system matrices. The uncertainties on the state delays, δτ1\delta\tau_{1}, …, δτK\delta\tau_{K}, are real-valued and bounded in absolute value by δτk¯<τk\overline{\delta\tau_{k}}<\tau_{k}. The open loop system now becomes

{x˙(t)=A~0(δ)x(t)+k=1KA~k(δ)x(t(τk+δτk))+B~(δ)u(t),y(t)=C~(δ)x(t).\left\{\begin{array}[]{l}\dot{x}(t)=\widetilde{A}_{0}(\delta)\,x(t)+\sum_{k=1}^{K}\widetilde{A}_{k}(\delta)\,x\big{(}t-(\tau_{k}+\delta\tau_{k})\big{)}+\widetilde{B}(\delta)\,u(t),\\ y(t)=\widetilde{C}(\delta)\,x(t).\end{array}\right.

The goal is to design a PID controller with low-pass filtering that strongly stabilizes the system for all admissible uncertainty values. To this end, the the design procedure of Section 5 has to be modified in the following way. Firstly, the constraint α(B~(δ)KdC~(δ))<1\alpha(\widetilde{B}(\delta)K_{d}\widetilde{C}(\delta))<1 now has to hold for all admissible uncertainty values or in other words,

αps(B~KdC~)=max{(λ):δ𝒟 such that det(λImB~(δ)KdC~(δ))=0}<1.\alpha^{\mathrm{ps}}(\widetilde{B}K_{d}\widetilde{C})=\max\left\{\Re(\lambda):\exists\delta\in\mathcal{D}\text{ such that }\det\big{(}\lambda I_{m}-\widetilde{B}(\delta)K_{d}\widetilde{C}(\delta)\big{)}=0\right\}<1. (18)

Secondly, instead of minimizing the spectral abscissa, we now have to minimize the pseudo-spectral abscissa of the characteristic function, which is defined as the worst-case value of the spectral abscissa over all admissible uncertainty values,

f(Kp,Kd,Ki)=maxλ{(λ):δ𝒟 and |δτk|<δτk¯ for k=1,K such that det(λ(InB~(δ)KdC~(δ))A~0(δ)k=1KA~k(δ)eλ(τk+δτk)B~(δ)KpC~(δ)B~(δ)KiC~(δ)λ)=0}f(K_{p},K_{d},K_{i})=\max_{\lambda\in\mathbb{C}}\Bigg{\{}\Re(\lambda):\exists\delta\in\mathcal{D}\text{ and }|\delta\tau_{k}|<\overline{\delta\tau_{k}}\text{ for }k=1,\dots K\text{ such that }\\ \textstyle\det\Bigg{(}\lambda\big{(}I_{n}\scalebox{0.9}[1.0]{$\,-\,$}\widetilde{B}(\delta)K_{d}\widetilde{C}(\delta)\big{)}\scalebox{0.9}[1.0]{$\,-\,$}\widetilde{A}_{0}(\delta)-\!\sum\limits_{k=1}^{K}\widetilde{A}_{k}(\delta)e^{-\lambda(\tau_{k}+\delta\tau_{k})}\scalebox{0.9}[1.0]{$\,-\,$}\widetilde{B}(\delta)K_{p}\widetilde{C}(\delta)\scalebox{0.9}[1.0]{$\,-\,$}\frac{\widetilde{B}(\delta)K_{i}\widetilde{C}(\delta)}{\lambda}\Bigg{)}\!=0\Bigg{\}} (19)

By noting that the characteristic functions in (18) and (19) can be rewritten as

det(λ[In00000000][0B~(δ)00ImKdC~(δ)0Ip])\det\left(\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0&0\\ 0&0&0\\ 0&0&0\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}0&\widetilde{B}(\delta)&0\\ 0&-I_{m}&K_{d}\\ \widetilde{C}(\delta)&0&-I_{p}\end{bmatrix}\right)

and

det(λ[In0000000000000000000000000000000Iq000000000In000000][A~0(δ)B~(δ)B~(δ)00000Im0KpUi0000Im00Kd0C~(δ)00Ip000000Vi00000000IpC~(δ)000000In]k=1K[A~k(δ)000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]eλ(τk+δτk)),\begin{array}[]{>{$}p{.9\textwidth}<{$}}\det\left(\lambda\begin{bmatrix}I_{n}&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&I_{q}&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ I_{n}&0&0&0&0&0&0\end{bmatrix}-\begin{bmatrix}\tilde{A}_{0}(\delta)&\tilde{B}(\delta)&\tilde{B}(\delta)&0&0&0&0\\ 0&-I_{m}&0&K_{p}&U_{i}&0&0\\ 0&0&-I_{m}&0&0&K_{d}&0\\ \tilde{C}(\delta)&0&0&-I_{p}&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&V_{i}&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&-I_{p}&\tilde{C}(\delta)\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&I_{n}\end{bmatrix}\right.-\\[45.0pt] \hfill\displaystyle\left.\sum_{k=1}^{K}\begin{bmatrix}\tilde{A}_{k}(\delta)&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\ 0&0&0&0&0&0&0\end{bmatrix}e^{-\lambda(\tau_{k}+\delta\tau_{k})}\right),\end{array}

respectively, both (18) and (19) can be computed using a slight modification of the method presented in [29, 30]. Furthermore, explicit expressions for the derivative of these quantities with respect to the elements of KpK_{p}, KdK_{d} and KiK_{i}, which are required in the optimization process, can be obtained using [30, Theorem 4.2].

7 Concluding remarks

This work analyzed the potential sensitivity of stability for PID control of dynamical systems with multiple state delays with respect to arbitrarily small modelling errors. This led to the introduction of the new notion of strong stability, which requires the preservation of stability under sufficiently small perturbations. We showed that, under a certain algebraic constraint on the derivative gain matrix KdK_{d}, strong stability can be achieved by adding a low-pass filter to the control loop. A computational procedure to design strongly stabilizing PID controllers was provided. A MatlabTM implementation of this algorithm is available from www.. The code used to generate Examples 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 is available from the same location.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the project C14/17/072 of the KU Leuven Research Council, by the project G0A5317N of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO - Vlaanderen). The authors are also members of the International Research Network (IRN) Distributed Parameter Systems with Constraints (”Spa-DisCo”) financially supported by the French CNRS and various European institutions and universities (including KU Leuven, Belgium) for the period 2018-2021.

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Appendix A Proof that system (12) is not stabilizable with P or PI control

Case I: P control (ki=0k_{i}=0) In this case, the characteristic polynomial becomes:

λ3+(1kp)λ2λ/31kp.\lambda^{3}+(1-k_{p})\lambda^{2}-\lambda/3-1-k_{p}.

The result follows immediately from the Routh-Hurwitz conditions for polynomials of degree three.

Case II: PI control (ki0k_{i}\neq 0) In this case, the characteristic polynomial becomes:

λ4+(1kp)λ3+(1/3ki)λ2+(1kp)λki.\lambda^{4}+(1-k_{p})\lambda^{3}+(-1/3-k_{i})\lambda^{2}+(-1-k_{p})\lambda-k_{i}.

The corresponding Routh-Hurwitz conditions for polynomials of degree four are:

kp<1\displaystyle k_{p}<1 (20)
ki<1/3\displaystyle k_{i}<-1/3 (21)
kp<1\displaystyle k_{p}<-1 (22)
ki<0\displaystyle k_{i}<0 (23)
2/3ki+(4/3)kp+kpki>0\displaystyle 2/3-k_{i}+(4/3)k_{p}+k_{p}k_{i}>0 (24)
2/32kp+2ki2kikp4/3kp2>0\displaystyle-2/3-2k_{p}+2k_{i}-2k_{i}k_{p}-4/3k_{p}^{2}>0 (25)

Condition (25) implies that

(2/3)2kp4/3kp2>2ki(kp1).-(2/3)-2k_{p}-4/3k_{p}^{2}>2k_{i}(k_{p}-1).

Furthermore, because kp1<0k_{p}-1<0 due to (20), this is equivalent with

(2/3)(kp+1/2)(kp+1)kp1<ki.\frac{-(2/3)(k_{p}+1/2)(k_{p}+1)}{k_{p}-1}<k_{i}.

Because the right hand side of this inequality is strictly positive for kp<1k_{p}<-1, it follows from (22) that kik_{i} must be strictly larger then 0. This contradicts however (23).

Appendix B System definition and resulting feedback matrices for Example 5.2

The system is defined by

A0=[0.34300.68430.12780.40780.77931.42861.66630.05581.41030.24301.76221.11460.76671.40180.60290.39751.93550.91322.63551.36010.45690.17571.52690.97640.01681.52170.13970.31750.67871.57690.30421.05470.98331.10162.27720.2041],A_{0}=\begin{bmatrix}-0.3430&0.6843&-0.1278&0.4078&-0.7793&-1.4286\\ 1.6663&0.0558&-1.4103&0.2430&-1.7622&-1.1146\\ -0.7667&-1.4018&0.6029&0.3975&-1.9355&0.9132\\ 2.6355&-1.3601&-0.4569&-0.1757&1.5269&0.9764\\ -0.0168&-1.5217&-0.1397&-0.3175&0.6787&-1.5769\\ 0.3042&1.0547&-0.9833&-1.1016&-2.2772&0.2041\end{bmatrix},
A1=[1.16360.06320.01530.17061.01610.33210.45370.38371.57041.07751.06331.25000.68820.11880.61720.10810.94340.88160.45810.48960.71580.22370.24110.29830.99570.09920.19380.46020.94610.26921.02700.33220.65740.51900.05910.3468],A_{1}=\begin{bmatrix}-1.1636&-0.0632&-0.0153&0.1706&1.0161&0.3321\\ 0.4537&0.3837&-1.5704&1.0775&1.0633&-1.2500\\ 0.6882&-0.1188&-0.6172&0.1081&-0.9434&-0.8816\\ 0.4581&0.4896&-0.7158&0.2237&-0.2411&-0.2983\\ 0.9957&0.0992&-0.1938&0.4602&-0.9461&-0.2692\\ -1.0270&0.3322&0.6574&0.5190&0.0591&0.3468\end{bmatrix},
A2=[0.16200.76000.21850.66800.08690.28110.35481.12260.10350.01910.88690.15540.00620.17720.53720.14460.47680.20870.18490.53840.26190.41800.80800.79661.05300.20930.45220.64980.91900.91160.28290.01220.03700.03900.07240.0892],A_{2}=\begin{bmatrix}-0.1620&-0.7600&0.2185&0.6680&-0.0869&0.2811\\ 0.3548&1.1226&-0.1035&0.0191&0.8869&-0.1554\\ -0.0062&-0.1772&-0.5372&-0.1446&0.4768&-0.2087\\ 0.1849&-0.5384&0.2619&0.4180&-0.8080&0.7966\\ 1.0530&-0.2093&-0.4522&-0.6498&-0.9190&0.9116\\ 0.2829&0.0122&-0.0370&0.0390&-0.0724&-0.0892\\ \end{bmatrix},
A3=[2.47751.02571.58910.83261.32391.70450.39641.24490.48901.56950.83120.58002.29222.23442.01490.21280.63522.57800.19151.42130.88181.55951.12281.10240.84040.60281.71150.73251.80202.09940.87711.22250.64532.37622.21570.2430],A3=\begin{bmatrix}2.4775&1.0257&1.5891&0.8326&-1.3239&1.7045\\ -0.3964&1.2449&-0.4890&-1.5695&-0.8312&0.5800\\ -2.2922&2.2344&-2.0149&-0.2128&0.6352&2.5780\\ 0.1915&1.4213&-0.8818&1.5595&-1.1228&-1.1024\\ 0.8404&0.6028&-1.7115&-0.7325&-1.8020&2.0994\\ 0.8771&1.2225&-0.6453&-2.3762&2.2157&0.2430\end{bmatrix},
B=[0.79280.10481.76340.31750.82410.06090.30131.03160.13410.83111.25730.52402.47120.21760.05540.43380.45291.1995],B=\begin{bmatrix}-0.7928&-0.1048&1.7634\\ 0.3175&0.8241&-0.0609\\ 0.3013&-1.0316&-0.1341\\ 0.8311&-1.2573&0.5240\\ -2.4712&0.2176&0.0554\\ 0.4338&-0.4529&1.1995\end{bmatrix},
C=[1.59590.81720.79051.90300.34770.91100.01330.19290.40051.19000.29240.5558],C=\begin{bmatrix}1.5959&-0.8172&0.7905&1.9030&-0.3477&-0.9110\\ -0.0133&0.1929&0.4005&-1.1900&-0.2924&-0.5558\end{bmatrix},

τ1=0.11\tau_{1}=0.11, τ2=0.21\tau_{2}=0.21 and τ3=1\tau_{3}=1.

The designed gain matrices are

Kp=[2.861510.53463.92545.31243.975013.8184],Kd=[1.74475.24244.71133.98330.943412.2535]andKi=[0.65190.04122.34982.56871.02651.5849].K_{p}=\begin{bmatrix}2.8615&10.5346\\ 3.9254&5.3124\\ -3.9750&13.8184\end{bmatrix},\quad K_{d}=\begin{bmatrix}1.7447&-5.2424\\ 4.7113&3.9833\\ 0.9434&12.2535\end{bmatrix}\text{and}\quad K_{i}=\begin{bmatrix}0.6519&0.0412\\ 2.3498&-2.5687\\ 1.0265&1.5849\end{bmatrix}.

Appendix C Resulting gain matrices for Examples 5.3 and 6.1

For Example 5.3, the resulting gain matrices are

Kp=[5.462137.838650.32012.247581.876181.384120.740320.948043.188619.153428.186349.34135.55203.227723.317928.906813.890720.990443.09703.319666.370864.368132.764444.411217.05737.03909.818973.132021.406916.281122.867812.1369],K_{p}=\begin{bmatrix}-5.4621&-37.8386&50.3201&2.2475&-81.8761&-81.3841&20.7403&20.9480\\ -43.1886&-19.1534&28.1863&-49.3413&-5.5520&-3.2277&-23.3179&-28.9068\\ -13.8907&-20.9904&43.0970&3.3196&66.3708&64.3681&32.7644&44.4112\\ 17.0573&7.0390&9.8189&73.1320&21.4069&16.2811&-22.8678&-12.1369\end{bmatrix},
Kd=[2.602035.292430.73264.626126.267044.932519.414911.926946.693928.347724.584247.105052.66390.535726.764212.025725.72835.120421.745516.796519.492548.841943.15431.435033.934313.093026.770562.266745.20393.570510.75388.9672]K_{d}=\begin{bmatrix}2.6020&-35.2924&30.7326&4.6261&-26.2670&-44.9325&19.4149&11.9269\\ -46.6939&-28.3477&24.5842&-47.1050&-52.6639&0.5357&-26.7642&-12.0257\\ -25.7283&5.1204&21.7455&16.7965&19.4925&48.8419&43.1543&-1.4350\\ 33.9343&13.0930&26.7705&62.2667&45.2039&-3.5705&-10.7538&8.9672\end{bmatrix}

and

Ki=[20.37164.941823.07539.29525.50200.143510.170620.703915.792215.709412.477632.23405.98625.498116.944523.146735.20620.92111.74056.67780.91621.986411.169732.21096.528610.778421.886736.47010.93302.762824.331623.2082].K_{i}=\begin{bmatrix}20.3716&-4.9418&23.0753&9.2952&-5.5020&-0.1435&10.1706&20.7039\\ -15.7922&-15.7094&-12.4776&-32.2340&-5.9862&5.4981&-16.9445&-23.1467\\ -35.2062&0.9211&1.7405&6.6778&0.9162&1.9864&11.1697&32.2109\\ -6.5286&10.7784&-21.8867&36.4701&0.9330&-2.7628&-24.3316&-23.2082\end{bmatrix}.

For Example 6.1, the resulting gain matrices are

Kp=[16.643063.312862.18104.433566.887668.059816.320716.515250.853319.329930.240636.15489.856512.995831.705726.146750.08495.658742.992413.232958.886152.449455.427742.727910.317015.64698.903975.014519.351116.477032.15678.2343],K_{p}=\begin{bmatrix}16.6430&-63.3128&62.1810&4.4335&-66.8876&-68.0598&16.3207&16.5152\\ -50.8533&-19.3299&30.2406&-36.1548&-9.8565&-12.9958&-31.7057&-26.1467\\ -50.0849&5.6587&42.9924&13.2329&58.8861&52.4494&55.4277&42.7279\\ 10.3170&15.6469&8.9039&75.0145&19.3511&16.4770&-32.1567&-8.2343\end{bmatrix},
Kd=[24.157213.274729.808717.30384.697033.34025.73791.007525.77864.00529.01921.240619.611413.105714.18454.025744.96908.043114.29468.28786.50730.36129.48641.429116.86502.27853.389126.649411.829924.989920.42911.1029]K_{d}=\begin{bmatrix}24.1572&-13.2747&29.8087&17.3038&4.6970&-33.3402&5.7379&-1.0075\\ -25.7786&4.0052&-9.0192&-1.2406&-19.6114&-13.1057&-14.1845&-4.0257\\ -44.9690&8.0431&14.2946&8.2878&6.5073&0.3612&9.4864&-1.4291\\ -16.8650&-2.2785&3.3891&26.6494&11.8299&-24.9899&-20.4291&-1.1029\end{bmatrix}

and

Ki=[3.762833.633337.426113.117927.117345.318815.88707.507345.324837.652826.176952.891950.65221.554725.017820.413518.77440.924014.85637.146820.219349.838141.446521.228328.956027.573127.615263.219143.87162.51576.32980.3217].K_{i}=\begin{bmatrix}3.7628&-33.6333&37.4261&13.1179&-27.1173&-45.3188&15.8870&7.5073\\ -45.3248&-37.6528&26.1769&-52.8919&-50.6522&1.5547&-25.0178&-20.4135\\ -18.7744&-0.9240&14.8563&7.1468&20.2193&49.8381&41.4465&21.2283\\ 28.9560&27.5731&27.6152&63.2191&43.8716&-2.5157&-6.3298&-0.3217\end{bmatrix}.