Nonlinear Control

A systematic computer-aided approach provides a versatile setting for the control engineer to overcome the complications of controller design for highly nonlinear systems. Computer-aided Nonlinear Control System Design provides such an approach based on the use of describing functions. The text deals with a large class of nonlinear systems without restrictions on the system order, the number of inputs and/or outputs or the number, type or arrangement of nonlinear terms. The strongly software-oriented methods detailed facilitate fulfillment of tight performance requirements and help the designer to think in purely nonlinear terms, avoiding the expedient of linearization which can impose substantial and unrealistic model limitations and drive up the cost of the final product.

Significant progress has been made on nonlinear control systems in the past two decades. However, many of the existing nonlinear control methods cannot be readily used to cope with communication and networking issues without nontrivial modifications. For example, small quantization errors may cause the performance of a "well-designed" nonlinear control system to deteriorate.