Einladung zum Vortrag im Kolloquium Technische Kybernetik

Global output regulation and a separation principle for rigid body equations

Dipl.-Ing. Gerd Simon Schmidt
Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control
The University of Stuttgart

Tuesday, 17. July 2012, 4:00 p.m.
IST-Seminar-Room 3.243 - Pfaffenwaldring 9 - Campus Stuttgart-Vaihingen

Abstract

The rigid body equations describe the motion of a system of point masses where the distance between the points is constant. Although this condition is an idealization, for the majority of solid bodies the appearing changes in shape and size can be neglected, which make the rigid body equations a model for a large class of systems. Control problems involving the rigid body equations appear in many applications, notably in aerospace and robotics. The corresponding control problems are challenging since the rigid body equations are highly nonlinear.
More specifically, because of geometrical properties of the configuration manifold, smooth control laws for these systems have multiple equilibria. Therefore, classical analysis and control design methods are usually not applicable to obtain global results for rigid body control problems.
In this talk, we will discuss a design approach to deal with these highly nonlinear equations and we present global results for output regulation problems for a class of systems that includes the rigid body equations. One important consequence of the result is a novelnonlinear separation principle for rigid body equations.

Biographical Information

Gerd S. Schmidt studied Engineering Cybernetics at University of Stuttgart, Germany. He received his Diploma degree from the University of Stuttgart in 2007. In October 2007, he joined the Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, where he is currently a research and teaching assistant. His research interests focus on nonlinear dynamical systems with emphasis on synchronization and output regulation problems.