Decentralized Control of a Class of Large-Scale Systems by Uncertainty Estimator

Abstract

A new decentralized controller is proposed for a group of subsystems subject to unknown interconnections and external disturbances. Under the assumption that the interconnections and disturbances satisfy a certain structural condition, the new controller suppresses the disturbances and intercoupling effects completely, making the overall system behave as a decoupled system. In this new control design, each local controller uses an uncertainty estimator proposed by Chen (1990) for estimation of the interconnections and disturbances, and then cancels these undesirable inputs directly. The major advantages of the proposed controller are that the interconnections need not satisfy the so-called “conical” condition, and there is no need for a priori information on the magnitudes of interconnections and disturbances.