Scheduled Controllers for Buildings under Seismic Excitation with Limited Actuator Capacity

Abstract

A new class of scheduled controllers is presented for improving the response of seismic-excited buildings under actuators with limited capacity. The controller is scheduled based on the response of the system on-line, to take full advantage of the inevitably limited actuation. While the controller is nonlinear, the overall approach relies on a variety of techniques from linear designs, which makes it possible to generalize the approach to a variety of systems and control objectives. For example, sufficient conditions for feasibility of a feedback controller are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities, thus solvable with standard software. Both state feedback and observer-based controllers are discussed. Performance of the proposed technique is illustrated through simulations of a six-story building subject to earthquake ground motion.